by B. J. Smash
The great mammal bent down on her front legs, and tilted her head forward to the ground for Lucian and me to dismount. We easily scooted over the top of her head and to the ground. Before we parted, I hugged and petted her trunk, and vowed that someday I’d be back for some mahout lessons from Maximus.
Magella waited just offshore. “She’s not allowed to come here. Neither is her brother. They have too much hatred in their hearts,” Maximus said.
We were in a cove of sorts, and the red clouds of the sunset hung just over the hills and mirrored themselves in the calm ocean before us.
When Magella noticed us, she stood on the boat and waved us on. Noticing Maximus, she paused and did something unexpected. She bowed her head, only briefly, but I hadn’t missed it. I could only think that it was because she knew the power he held, and she actually respected him. I couldn’t help but smile at the situation.
I asked Maximus, “Why can’t you come with us?”
“You flatter me, but I cannot come. This is not my battle. Not yet.” He gazed up into the sky. “I would not let you pass into the land of the Elven, if I didn’t think you could handle it.” He patted my shoulder and said, “Fear nothing. Know your self-worth. You will do just fine.”
I gave him a quick hug and said, “Thanks for everything.”
He nodded with a grin and waved us on.
Lucian and I took some type of magical canoe out to the boat. The canoe was made of dark wood and had fancy alchemy script on the sides. Pladia hid in my hood after she told me, “Old witch wicked! She use me for no good. I hide.”
When we boarded the boat, I turned to find that the canoe had just up and disappeared.
The others had transformed into hellhounds and, splashing into the water, made their way by swimming.
We were ready.
Maximus saluted us and then brought his right arm out to the side. He swung the arm to the front of him and made a fist and brought it in to his chest.
As he closed his arm, the fog folded in, and the island was gone.
When we settled in, Magella called out to the sea, commanding it to carry us swiftly forward, and we were off with great speed. There was silence as everyone eyeballed Magella. I think we all felt uneasy around her. I tried to break the silence with what I thought was a witty comment.
“Did we just hang out with God?” For Maximus was set apart from the others, in a way I couldn’t understand. I expected everyone to laugh, but no one made a noise. Not even Magella. They all looked to one another with not a word.
A few minutes later, I said incredulously, “So, God drinks whisky?”
To this, they all burst out in laughter.
“Aye. I’m afeared he can never get drunk,” Alexander snorted.
“I wouldn’t call him God,” Ian said, “but he is who he is.”
I didn’t know what to think of this, but I knew that somehow Maximus was special.
I found myself dozing, using Lucian’s shoulder as a pillow. When I awoke, the others were just waking up as well. Hugh yawned and rolled his head around to stretch his neck. We must have slept away the night, as it was now dawn.
Pladia’s fear of Magella was so great that she hadn’t said a single word the entire trip; even so, I felt her stir in my hood.
Trent was the last to awaken, and as he rubbed his eyes he said, “We there yet?”
“’Tis right up there—the outskirts of the land of the Elven,” Magella said. “We must part at any moment. Once you’ve gone, I will make my way north and anchor on the bay.” She leaned on the edge of the boat. “It is my only wish at this time, to be able to help you, but alas, my blasted mother has cursed me to the water. I will help when I can, but don’t expect much.”
The thought of Magella on our side flabbergasted me. I never thought the day would come, but here it was. I couldn’t say that I liked her for it, but I didn’t dislike her anymore. If only Izaill had offered us help, although his heart was black as coal, I had no doubt.
“You’ve done your part. You’ve hidden us and given us safe passage along these waters,” Ian offered.
“Yes, I have. But don’t count me out just yet. There may come a time that I may be of help. We’ll see how things play out,” she answered.
Chapter Thirty-One
The storm hit us out of nowhere, thrashing the sides of the midsized boat and tearing boards away with the violent waves. Magella cursed the sea and demanded the storm to halt.
It didn’t listen.
“This is someone else’s doing. I’ll be able to hold it off, but I cannot stop it without consulting my grimoire.” She wiped the water from her face with the sleeve of her gray tunic. “I have nae seen a storm come up this fast and furious in a long damn time.”
She ran below deck but never got a chance to return. The waves grew so high that water began to fill the boat. There was no time left.
Magella didn’t believe in life preservers, and so there wasn’t any. She could live in the ocean; I’d seen her underwater before and it wasn’t pretty, but she could at least breathe.
We crashed into a rocky ridge, cracking the boat in two and throwing us overboard. Pladia escaped my hood and flew up and out above us. We were all separated when the next wave took us under. The ocean could be relentless, and no human nor Elf would be able to fight against its strength. The frigid cold water sucked me under again, numbing my limbs. My head spun and my body turned over and over, until I didn’t know which way was up.
My muscles ached from the fight I put up, but after a while, my body wanted to give in. A strong arm wrapped around me, hauling me up to the surface. My head whacked into a board, but I was able to stay alert and wrap my arms around it. Lucian floated beside me.
Off in the distance we saw the others piled on a plank, and they were fine, from what I could see, but floating the opposite way. We could hear them calling out to us, but it was no use, and soon they were out of sight.
“Are you okay?” Lucian cried out over the harsh sea.
“I’ll live.” My teeth chattered.
Pladia spotted us and flitted down to our level. “I save you first.” She shimmied and shook, twitched and jiggled, releasing silvery dust down into the water and forming a path from us to the shore. Magically, the board we held onto turned and followed her lead; the trickling flow of the water bubbled around us.
“Thank goodness for pixies,” I managed to say.
We were closer to shore, and soon we were close enough to make our way to the rocky beach. When we finally made our way out of the water, we fell to the ground to rest and get our bearings. Both of us were drenched to the bone and smelled like saltwater and fish. My hair lay heavily on my head and down my back.
You could toss a stone and hit the wood line it was so close. There wasn’t much of a beach at all, and where we sat was layered in stones.
“I go for clan of McCallister. I fear they stray way, way far.” She fluttered her wings. “You go in woods. I return soon. I find you.”
“Thank you so much, Pladia.”
“It was nothing. I go.” She flew back out over the ocean, well above the waves. Our red-haired pixie disappeared into the blue-gray horizon.
“They’ll be fine. But we can’t wait here for them. She said to get into the woods,” Lucian said.
I agreed, but disappointment soon set in when I realized what the ocean had stolen from me.
“I’ve lost everything except my sack,” I said, which was wrapped around my upper body. “I’ve lost my hurling stick, the wand that Izadora gave me. Not that I knew how to even use it, but it’s gone!”
I checked my sack to find that the vial from Maximus was still there. Phew!
Panic hit me, and my chest tightened when it occurred to me that I may have lost my most treasured possession. “My necklace!” I felt for it and found the chain around the base of my neck. “Oh no—where is the stone?”
Lucian, noticing my displeasure, came to my assistance. He pulled on the
chain to reveal that the stone had been laying on my back. “It just got turned around in the ocean, that’s all. Take a deep breath, Ivy. You’re turning blue from panic.” He touched my cheek. “And hey, you may have lost a few items, but at least we’re alive.”
I leaned over and gave him a quick hug. “Thank you, and you’re right. But I can’t lose that stone—my mother gave it to me.”
He smiled and shook his head, letting me know he understood. His wet hair clung to his forehead, and water dripped from his chin. “We better get off the beach and into those woods. Who knows if someone watches?”
We stood and went to the woods. Where we entered, there were thickets full of thorns. Lucian went first, breaking his way through and forging a path for me. The forest itself, a labyrinth of ominous trees and overgrown bushes, seemed out of character. I had expected the forest to be enchanting. I understood that we were on the outskirts, the land before where the Elven people resided, but still…I thought it would be less intimidating.
As we broke out of the thick trees and bushes, Lucian said, “Check this out.”
Before us, it seemed like a mixture of seasons. Colorful leaves spilled over the ground, and yet a white frost covered everything with a scattering of snow. Yet herbs, fresh and green, grew from the earth.
“That’s weird,” I muttered.
A stiff wind would jar us from time to time, chilling us to the bone. Yet there were spots where the sun shone brightly and were as pleasant as summertime back in Maine.
It was at one of these pleasant spots that we rested to eat a couple of sweet jackfruit chips. Somehow they never got wet. We sat down on a little hill, in the grassland out of the way of the trees, to feel some heat from the sun. Slowly, our clothing began to dry.
The grass was thick and lush. “Weird place, this island is.” Lucian fumbled with his words. He was as confused as I was.
“It is.” I chewed my snack. “We must be in the heart of the forest by now. The island seems bigger than I pictured it would be.”
“I agree.” He moved his head around, scanning the area. “I can’t say that I feel too safe here, out in the open, even though the sun feels nice. We better carry on.”
I nodded my head and packed the jackfruit chips back up in my sack.
“Something doesn’t smell right. It’s rather foul,” Lucian observed. I knew he had a keen sense of smell, as I considered him to be part hellhound even in human form.
We were about to stand when a twig snapped, and voices could be heard. “Shhhh.” Lucian pulled my arm, and we bent low to the ground as we ran to the tree line. More voices could be heard, louder this time. “This can’t be good for us.”
“I’d have to agree,” I said with a touch of sarcasm. “What do we do?”
He didn’t have time to answer. A Fae fighter descended over a hill, and when his eyes caught us, we fled. Where there was one fighter, several would follow. Lucian shifted while running, and as I ran alongside him, I observed the way his limbs popped and contorted and expanded out into huge muscles; it freaked me out. By the time his snout filled in and his teeth grew a couple of inches, he was devilish. A true hellhound. I had to believe he was even bigger and scarier than the first couple of times I’d seen him shift.
We ran into the hills and through a dense copse of trees. I could hardly see my own feet as we sped up and on through a shallow river. The banks were slippery and muddy, but we must have been going so fast that we escaped sinking. There was no way anyone on foot could catch us. I hardly was one to be arrogant, but I felt a smidgen of arrogance now as we fled the scene. They’d have to shoot arrows at us to bring us down. And so I thought we’d eluded them, until one of us tripped a net and we were zipped up to the trees and swaying back and forth, listening to the creak of the rope on the tree. Lucian growled and spit drool, as we were scrunched together by the force of the net. His big dog body crushed my side, and his long, sharp claws tore at my arm.
Instantly, with just a blur, he shifted back, his face next to mine. We were too close for comfort at this point.
“I think you’re getting too good at shifting, but I’m glad you managed to become human again. Otherwise you might have killed me,” I said.
“It’s the adrenaline stuff I was telling you about. The more present, the faster I can shift.”
“Well, that’s nice.” I couldn’t help the sarcasm. “Now let me get my knife so we can cut this.” I reached for the knife that was sheathed to my calf, but he was so big and bulky that my movements were limited.
“I’ll get it,” he offered as he swept his hand along my calf, searching for the knife. He found it and pulled, displaying the four-inch bone blade.
“Hurry, Lucian, they can’t be far,” I urged him on.
With swift cutting movements, he tried his best to saw through. It was pointless. The netting was too strong and thick.
“Damn!” He tried again. “Dammit! You’re going to have to use magic, Ivy.”
I knew he was right, and my mind whirled as I tried to remember a spell. I stuttered, “I-I can’t r-remember any. I wish I’d have paid more attention to Izadora.”
Before I could land on a spell, a Fae fighter stepped up. Now the main differences between the Fae and a Fae fighter were their stature and IQ level. The Fae people, Unseelie and Seelie both, were the most beautiful species alive—to my knowledge. They were gorgeous and breathtaking beings. However, the Fae fighters, beautiful and handsome as they are, were Fae fighters for a reason. They were big, brawny dudes with broad shoulders and square heads. They didn’t talk much, and they only cared about one thing: winning.
The Fae fighter that stood before me had to be seven feet tall, and though he was a pretty boy, he would be hard to take down. I’d seen Drumm whip through a few of them easily. But that was Drumm. I didn’t know how Lucian would stand up. And I didn’t get the chance to, until…
The Fae fighter cut the net down with one great swing of his sword as several others approached. We landed with a heavy thump, and pain shot up my backside. Lucian vibrated and shook as he attempted to shift. He almost succeeded when one of the fighters tossed a length of chain mail encrusted with blue stones over his midriff. During my study of stones with Izadora, I recognized this stone to be lapis lazuli.
Lucians face reddened to the color of holly berries as he screamed hellfire. His skin sizzled and smoked as he thrashed about, trying in every way possible to remove the mail from his body, but it stuck to him. I couldn’t stand to see him suffer so.
Panicking, I grabbed at it, screaming, “Stop it! Remove it from him, NOW.”
Someone grabbed the back of my hair and hauled me up to his level, my feet dangling below. “Stupid Fae F—” I began to say as he squeezed my face with his free hand.
“Shut it,” he demanded.
The burning pain in my head consumed me as I reached up to grab his hands. Once I figured out there was no way to release them, he got a swift kick right in the privates. He buckled over, releasing my hair, and I flung myself onto his back and pounded his head and shoulders with as much force as I could muster. He shouted out expletives as I bruised his face. I could only see red as I beat him mercilessly.
I could hear the others laughing, but not for long. It was quickly silenced by something jumping out of the trees.
I brought myself back from the anger, focusing my eyes back to daylight, on what was taking place. A group of my fast-spinning comrades had joined us. The Elven, in all their glory. Four of them. Their blond heads zipped in and out from the speed, blurring their faces. I couldn’t focus to see who they were. They swung their legs, taking the massive Fae fighters down to their knees, bloodying their faces with their kicks. No mercy.
I found myself on my knees, removing the lapis lazuli chain mail from Lucian. Skin tore when I pulled it off. His breath was heavy, and he had scald marks on his arms and chest. Blisters.
“Oh, Lucian,” I said.
He didn’t answer. The pain in his r
ed face was evident. He gently moved me aside and jumped one of the Fae fighters—the one that had picked me up by my hair. The guy never stood a chance. Lucian shifted once again to hellhound form, his joints popping, and sunk his teeth into the guy’s arm and ripped it clear from his body. Blood spewed everywhere and rapidly stained the earth.
Slightly in shock, I leaned upon the coarse trunk of the tree. Somehow, the tree comforted me, and my energy was slowly restored. All I could do was watch. I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Surely, this was what McCallister darkness was all about. The more adrenalin, the crazier they got. My mind was so blown that I couldn’t turn my gaze away. The crunching, the tearing of flesh. The Fae fighter was a bloody mass of bones when Lucian had finished. When he turned to me, his eyes were the color of crimson, and his white fur was stained with a black-red blood.
I cringed back, pulling my feet away from him.
The Elven had taken the remainder of the Fae fighters down. It did not end there. More of the enemy arrived; big, burly beings with determined faces walked out from beyond the trees, and we were soon outnumbered.
What came next, I couldn’t say. A familiar voice could be heard over the chaos. A voice I had grown up with. Something struck the side of my head, knocking it back into the tree. Blackness remained.
Chapter Thirty-Two
My first thoughts formed around the pain that shot through my temples. The pale gray sky seemed too bright when I opened my eyes. I clenched them back up and tried to get my bearings. When I attempted to move my arms, a sharp pain jolted up my neck. My hands were bound before me in a way-too-tight rope.
“You okay, Ivy?” Lucian asked.
Opening my eyes, I saw that he sat a few feet away, his hands and feet bound by chains that contained the blue stones. His hair was a mess, his face covered in blood. His clothes were torn from being handled harshly, and his eye had been blackened from a punch to the head.
“You look terrible.” My voice was raspy.
“Ha. You’ve seen better days yourself.”