Heroines and Hellions: a Limited Edition Urban Fantasy Collection

by Margo Bond Collins

  The moment that thought crossed my mind, a very luminous light emerged from the flowers in the crystal vase. It looked like the fireflies I kept seeing, but now I knew it wasn’t a firefly. And, suddenly, for no apparent reason, I remembered everything: It was a fairy light and was there to save my life, to get me out of that illusion trapping me.

  “What am I doing here?” I heard myself saying.

  “What are you doing here? You should get ready, my love, that’s what!” John cheerfully replied. Then he stroked my arm with affection and kissed my cheek. For a second, the fairy light got blurry and less luminous. But only for a second.

  “I MUST GET OUT OF HERE!” I erupted, freeing myself from his arms, my eyes focused on the fairy light.

  “Rob, what’s wrong? Want to talk about it?” John asked, grabbing my hand. I turned to him. His dark grey eyes were filled with love and concern. The fairy started humming, I heard it humming in the back of my head and the light became more and more luminous. It was time to go.

  “As much as I want it to be, nothing of this is real, John,” I replied, surprised by my own words. “There are people who need me and I need to go.”

  “Please, stay!” he begged me, gently squeezing my hand. “What do you care if this is real or not? We can be happy, here, forever.”

  “Sorry John, but I want real. And in real life, you dumped me to marry a very normal girl with a stupid name. You don’t dig weird, let alone love it!”

  The fairy light stopped humming and shot into the mirror in front of me. The second it did, something appeared inside the glass. Someone. It was James Turner, fast asleep in a dark blue bubble. He looked extremely ill, with dark circles under his eyes. And, the most serene smile on his face. I had to get him out of there, wake him up, before it was too late.

  “Goodbye John,” I said, twisting my hand to free it from his.

  “Robyn, no! Please stay!” he yelled once again, as I jumped into the mirror without even looking back.

  Immediately, I was hit by a powerful light, a good one, as if the fairy light had grown much larger and much more luminous. Still confused, I reached to James and grabbed hold of his hand, before being swallowed by a carousel of lights and colours, spinning and spinning all around me.

  16

  The Cursed Wood

  We landed on hard, cold ground. And in a wood. Or so it seemed. We were surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of grey trees, whose trunk looked metallic. The sky was also a pale grey and radiated an all around unhealthy, pale light.

  “Gosh, that was tough! Getting rid of that glamour, or illusion or whatever it was…most difficult thing I’ve done so far!” I said, massaging my right hip. I had landed squarely on it and it was now quite sore.

  “It was,” James replied, as I helped him back onto his feet. “I believe our second gate was ‘The Mirror Of Illusions.’”

  “Huh?”

  “It’s a mythical artefact, very ancient. According to legend, it was created by a powerful demon to collect human souls. It shows you a perfect life, causing you to forget about everything else, even the people you love and who need you the most. It traps you in an ideal world, while sucking all the life out of you. Once you’re dead, the demon collects your soul.”

  “How very nice of Okasan! She’s really showering us with affection, isn’t she? Well, I’m glad we got out of it!”

  “You got out of it. I don’t know if I would have made it out, without you,” James corrected me. “Thank you for waking me. I owe you.”

  “I… You’re welcome,” I replied, feeling suddenly uneasy. Being a supernatural freak that most wizards don’t trust, I wasn’t really used to compliments, nor thanks.

  “If I may ask, how did you do it? I mean, how did you get the strength to recognise the illusion?”

  “I…don’t really know…I felt that something wasn’t right. Something was missing.”

  “I understand. Know what you mean.”

  He seemed to have bought it. I chose to give him a partial truth. I wasn’t sure I was ready tell him about the fairy and my connection with her, especially since I wasn’t even sure if that connection truly existed. Perhaps I had only dreamt it. In any case, it felt like something too big and complicated to explain while in such a deadly situation.

  “What…what was your illusion?” I heard myself asking instead. Why on Earth had I asked him? What did I care? Maybe I just wanted to change the subject?

  “I was in Russia,” he replied, without hesitations. “And, I was so very happy. I lived there for a while, you know. Some of the best, and the worst memories of my life are connected to Russia…something wrong?”

  “Where’s William?” I rushed, suddenly realising he wasn’t with us. The Mirror of Illusions, and passing though, it had left me groggy and confused. But now the confusion had cleared up and I was very aware that my dear ghost wasn’t with us. “He should have come through too, right?”

  “Well, I’m not…”

  “Do you think he got trapped there? Do you think the Mirror works on ghosts too?”

  “I have no idea. I’ve already told you all I know about it.”

  “Please, stay silent for a minute. I need to concentrate.”

  “Stay silent? Wha..?”

  “Ssh!”

  “Have you just shushed me? I…all right,” he sighed, defeated by my concerned, terrified look. He turned his back on me, I guess to give me some kind of privacy.

  I took a deep breath and closed my eyes.

  “William, Will…” I shouted in my head, desperate. William and I had formed such a strong bond over the years, that there wasn’t a place or time where I couldn’t reach out to him and summon him to my side. I had called him that one time I was with my parents in Paris, another when I was in Rome, on a school trip. I had even managed to call him when I was in New York once.

  I had started to communicate with him telepathically when I was seven years old, and my parents became concerned about me talking to my “imaginary friend” all the time. But he was far from imaginary. He was the best, most reliable friend I had ever had. The only one who really knew me and could truly understand what I was, and still am, going through. I don’t even know how we started using telepathy to communicate. He didn’t teach me, I didn’t learn it. I simply needed to talk to him all the time and had found a way to do it.

  “William, please respond,” I insisted. And heard nothing. Absolutely nothing. Not even a feeling nor a thought of his resonated in my head. I had lost him. I had just lost my ghost, my number one supporter. My best friend.

  “What’s happened? Why are you crying?”

  My eyes were stinging and filling with tears and I couldn’t help it.

  “Hey, Wise, come on! We’re going to get out of here, we’ve only gone through a demonic artefact…”

  “It’s not that. I’m…I’m not worried for myself. I’ve lost my ghost,” I sobbed. “William isn’t here, he’s not answering me.”

  “Answering you?”

  “Yes, we can communicate telepathically. We’ve been doing it since forever. It always works, no matter the distance: I call him and he comes, or at least he answers me, while now…”

  “OK, calm down,” he said gently. “And, don’t cry, it’s useless. It will exhaust you, and you need all your strength right now.”

  “I know, I just can’t help it. I took for granted that he’d passed through the Mirror too, just like us. What if he’s still trapped?”

  “Well, if that’s the case, you shouldn’t worry for now. The Mirror is designed to suck the life out of people, then collect their soul. His Grace is already dead and a powerful ghost. Which means he’s not vulnerable, at least for a while. Okasan isn’t going to hurt him either. As I said, she’s likely far too busy with her incantation. She’s probably not even aware of his presence, which, yet again, plays in our favour. It could also be that your ghost did go through the gate, but landed in a difference place.”

  “But
, in that case, I’d be able to feel his presence at least!”

  “Maybe not. I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but this place has a very dark, poisonous aura. Unfortunately for us, it’s already interfering with my perceptions. It could be diminishing your perceptions as well.”

  “Now, I say we focus on screwing up Okasan’s plans. Once she’s gone, her spells will be too, and His Grace will be back with us, safe and sound. What do you say?”

  “I say, you’re right,” I replied, swallowing my tears. “Sorry, if I’ve over-reacted.”

  “It’s okay. He’s your life-long companion. I would have been surprised, if you didn’t get emotional. Now, let’s go. I suggest we follow this path for now and stay alert,” he said, pointing at one of the many, twisted paths in front of us. A path that looked as though it had been carved by a giant hand in the hard, grey soil.

  “OK,” I nodded, as we started walking. “And, sorry I told you to shut up. It was very rude of me.”

  “Never mind. You were very stressed.”

  “Any idea of where we are?” I asked, concentrating, trying to pick-up William’s presence but feeling only a very powerful, very poisonous dark aura. “I’ve never felt such a negative energy before and I assure you that I’ve been in a few nasty places myself.”

  “I believe you,” James replied, all tensed with concentration, just like me. “But this energy…if you pay attention, it doesn’t come directly from the trees…more from what’s on them, I believe. But, as I said, my perceptions are messed up”

  “What do you mean? What’s on them?”

  “Metallic leaves…steel-like trunks…” James muttered to himself, ignoring me as we walked into the wood, concentrating to understand where we were. He suddenly looked lost in his thoughts.

  “No…no, that’s not possible,” James kept saying to himself, as we stopped a yard away from a very tall tree with a massive trunk. “She couldn’t have taken them here, they’re not supposed to grow anywhere else…”

  “Sorry, what are you talking about?”

  “This place is called The Cursed Wood. It is a tengu nest.”

  “A tengu nest?! What the hell?…”

  “Yeah, hell’s definitely involved. It requires unthinkable demon power to move the cursed trees from their natural environment. This is Okasan’s third and most powerful line of defence. No wonder she can concentrate on her spell, having a tengu nest between her and her enemies.”

  “But how’s a nest? I only see trees here…where are the tengus?” I asked, curious and terrified; a feeling I was getting familiar with.

  “Come here and have a look,” James replied, grabbing a low branch of the tree and showing it to me.

  I examined the metallic leaves: They were kind of shiny and probably as hard as they looked, but I didn’t have the courage to touch them. They sprouted from the branch in pairs, and in the centre of every pair there was a bunch of dark berries. I immediately felt that the dark aura I perceived was coming from them, not from the trees themselves.

  “What are these? Cursed berries or something?”

  “Those aren’t berries,” James replied. “Look closer.”

  I did. And gasped.

  “Something is moving inside them!” I cringed. “Something…evil! What is it?”

  “Those are eggs,” James whispered, letting the branch go. “Tengu eggs. Hundreds of thousands, maybe even millions. It depends on how many trees Okasan managed to bring here, wherever ‘here’ is, exactly. These trees form a sort of symbiosis with the eggs, the eggs can only be laid in the Cursed Wood. And, the Cursed Wood can grow in one place only, it’s the only limit imposed on its power. Never would I have imagined Okasan could transplant some of the tengu trees elsewhere. This is…our enemy is even more powerful than I thought.”

  As always, it kept getting better.

  “But…all those eggs…who laid them?” I asked, as we kept going, more and more aware of the impending danger.

  “Good question indeed. Tengus are all male, as you’ve probably noticed. There is only one female: The Tengu Queen. She mates with the alpha male and produces hundreds of thousands of eggs each time. You must have total control over the Queen to control the rest of the tengus. Tengu queens are a very rare to find, very powerful creatures, her eggs produce a lethal poison to protect the Tengu larvae as they grow into adult tengus. She produces poisonous miasmas that feed the cursed trees. No wonder Okasan used her as her third, and strongest line of defence: We would have died instantly, had it not been for the Rain Man’s protective masks.”

  “So, this tengu queen is very dangerous…” I interjected, trying to hide my mounting anxiety.

  “‘Very dangerous’ is an understatement. She’s practically invulnerable. The only wizard known to have killed a tengu queen was Hattori Hanzo, and he survived by the skin of his teeth.”

  He was talking about the most powerful wizard of the Eastern hemisphere -- the creator of the tengu slayer that I was holding in my hand. If he had barely made it, what chances did we have? Every single muscle of my body was tensed.

  “Stay close to me,” James said, as if he could read my mind. “Don’t stray from the path.”

  “All right,” I reassured him. I kind of felt that being reckless wouldn’t have paid off that time. We kept going. We wandered and wandered through tortuous passages almost shut closed by the thick branches of the cursed trees entangling with one another. After a while, I started to look around for something different, for a clue, maybe. Something that suggested that we were going in the right direction. Or, that showed we were making progress of some sort. Everything looked painfully the same. The steel grey sky, the tall, metallic trees hiding their hideous secret. The plants were all flawless, their trunks without a single mark, not a crack nor a stain that made one stand out from the rest. I kept my eyes open, hoping to catch the fairy light again, but after a while, I started asking myself if perhaps I’d just dreamt it. Maybe it was just something my subconscious had produced, to help me skip death. Twice. Still, there was no way I could have known that the weak point of the voodoo robots was their head, and not their heart. Not to mention, the Mirror of Illusions, I could never have got out of it without help. The odds were all against me, no doubt! The fairy had somehow managed to connect with me, even while I was unconscious at the Rain Man’s. But, if that was the case, if she had been my hero, why wasn’t she helping me now? Did I have to do something to ‘trigger’ our connection, so that she could help us? Something that I had already done, only subconsciously? If that was the case, we were all the more screwed, since I had no clue whatsoever of how I’d reached out to her. It had all begun after I came in contact with the fairy blood she had used to write her message. I started to think that, maybe, she hadn’t done it out of necessity, but for a very precise purpose: To contact me at a higher level, so to say. It was like a sort of chemical reaction, a magical reaction, actually. Only, the visions came and went just like that. I had no control over them, I didn’t know how to ‘summon’ them. I reached for the fairy message in my pocket and squeezed it. Nothing happened.

  “Come on, Wise, concentrate!” I told myself, as we kept wandering in the Cursed Wood, a heavy silence between us. “I’m the only one who can get us out of here…come on!”

  Still nothing. All we could do, was keep walking. We went straight on for what felt like an eternity, then the path turned right and suddenly grew wider. Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe we were finally getting closer to the exit…

  “STOP!” James said, grabbing my arm abruptly.

  “What’s that?” I asked, pointing at a pond of thick, bituminous liquid oozing across the width of the road, making it impossible for us to continue without walking straight into it.

  “That’s the poison that keeps tengu larvae alive while in their eggs. The trees must expel the excess of it, so it exudes up through the surface of the soil, as you’re seeing now.”

  “OK, so, what do we do now?”

&nb
sp; We obviously couldn’t go any further, I doubt that even the Rain Man’s armour could protect us from such a concentrated and powerful poison. The only other option would be to leave the path and venture into the wilderness of the Cursed Wood.

  “I could remove that pond with my magic,” James replied, staring at the poison, pensively.

  “But wouldn’t that…?”

  “Raise attention? Yes, it could. Not Okasan’s. She is now concentrated on her spell, as we know. But something else…living here. We might definitely signal our position…”

  “Something else? Like what?” I asked, not sure if I really wanted to know. Then, for some reason I stopped staring at the dark pond and looked up, at the grey sky above us. I kind of felt I had to, it felt ‘right’. The sky wasn’t empty, as I had expected. Something was coming.

  “Mister Turner? Something is flying towards us!” I stuttered, pointing at the horizon, now filled with hideous birds the size of large dogs. There were dozens of them, and they were getting closer fast. Very quickly.

  “What the hell?” James muttered, squinting to get a better look. I imitated him and, thanks to my sharp eyesight, I noticed that they weren’t really birds. They were creatures with the body of a bird and a sort of human-like, monstrous skull.

  “Harpies! Run!” James suddenly shouted. We turned and headed into the thickness of the metallic trees.

  So, we needn’t have worried about raising attention. We had already been targeted. Probably since stepping foot into the wood. They were just waiting for the right moment to attack us.

  “I thought no one but tengus could survive in here!” I shouted, running like crazy beside James. “So how do they?…”

  “Wanna stop and ask them?”

  No, I didn’t. Those harpies weren’t even like the ones described by Virgil in his Aeneid. They were worse. Virgil’s were birds with beautiful female heads and weren’t even that dangerous. They just flew around, telling scary prophecies. These, on the other hand, had an aura almost as poisonous as the Wood’s, and they had monstrous skulls, stained with the same dark poison exuding from the wood’s soil. Some heads had flesh that was being eaten by maggots, others had purulent blisters, and some had one giant eye just in the middle of their forehead. They emanated a stench so strong that I could smell it through the Rain Man’s protective mask.