by Guin Archer
Blinking over and around them, I knew I was back on my Earth. Or some close approximation of it. The house, though old, was very much not of the architecturally ancient variety Intau favored. There was a Dish on the roof and a couple solar panels. There was a Ford pickup of some sort parked outside a freestanding garage.
Definitely Earth.
Movement from the porch had me refocusing there. And, in a single heartbeat, I felt my world shift in a more profound way than it had since that night in the alleyway years ago.
Years. It really has been years.
“Io…what the fuck?! Am I having a stroke?”
There, standing stooped before me, was Rachel. All white hair, wrinkles, and arthritis, but the same jade-hued eyes goggling back at me. They were touched finely by cataracts now. Her tats, too, were weathered and sun-beaten. She still had her signature caramel skin and I could see that she was in fair shape for being as obviously aged as she was.
I started crying.
“R-rachel?”
I don’t remember moving. I only knew that I went from standing across the lawn to being directly in front of her. With a shrill wail, I was bending in a crouch to hug her to me, my face nuzzling into her cutesy bob. She held me back shakily, but I didn’t care if she believed what was happening or not. I barely believed it myself, but I’d learned not to shirk off the good things that came at you.
“Io, honey, you’re crushing me.” Despite the complaint, Rachel was chuckling. She squeezed me. “God, what happened to you?”
“Long story,” I hoarsed out. I didn’t want to let her go even to look her in the eyes.
“I got time.”
“I don’t think I do,” I whispered to her honestly. I kissed her brow and stood back up straight. Rachel had been shorter than me before I turned Innintani. Now, though, I towered over her ass. I could admit selfishly that I liked being the tall one after so long as a veritable smallfry. “My God, Rach, it’s so good to see you.”
“What happened to you? Is this what I’m gonna look like when I die?” Her lips pursed up, but then she smiled wide. “Actually, that’d be pretty wicked. Those wings are sharp.”
She made me laugh a hollow sort of laugh. I brushed my knuckles against the wrinkles crinkling the corners of her eyes. She was so very old. At least eighty. She’d only been twenty-seven when I was shot dead.
“Short of the story is that I went on an adventure. To a new world or dimension or something. I didn’t know I was gone so long.” I swallowed thickly. “How…how was everyone? Did you check in with my folks? My brothers?”
“Jed, go get your phone.” Rachel waved to the kid that had to be her grandson. He was quick to obey her, running back into the house. “You might wanna sit, Io.”
“How about you sit, old woman.” I winked at her even as I ushered her towards one of the shiny rockers on the porch. She slapped my stomach in reprimand, but it felt like a flutter of butterfly wings. I didn’t know if that was because of my new body or because of her frailty, but it was another mark of my differences with her now.
“I’ll pop you one, girl.”
“You can try if you can reach.” Still, I guided her gently down into the chair. My heart wrenched to see her this way even though I was thrilled to see her at all. I never thought to see anyone from my past again other than in my dreams.
She started talking almost as soon as her grandson returned to hover attentively nearby.
“Your death wasn’t taken well, honey. Your momma and daddy…they couldn’t accept it. Your blood was found behind the parlor, but your body wasn’t. Everyone assumed you’d been kidnapped and trafficked. Your folks searched for years, a long time after the police gave up and considered you dead or unrecoverable. They wouldn’t give up. We all, me, Spike, and Bomber, tried to keep an eye on them for you. Sold the shop and passed all the profits on to them like we thought you’d have wanted.” She grimaced. “You should know they never stopped lookin’. They passed a few few years ago still believing you were out there somewhere.”
God, I felt sick to my stomach. It had to have been a nightmare to have lost me, their child, and not been able to have closure. I wished there had been something I could do, but I knew that was just wishful thinking.
“Your brothers are around. They check in occasionally.” Rachel fussed with her comfortable looking cotton shirt. “Actually, Zane and I…”
“Zane’s my grandfather, which makes you my great-aunt,” the kid filled in. He held out his hand, the one not holding the cellphone, and beamed his boyish grin at me. “M’names’s Harrison, but everyone calls me Jed. Nice to finally meet you, Aunty.”
Well…shit.
“Nice to meet you.” I shook his hand firmly before turning back to my old friend and apparent sister-in-law. I might end up crying again.
“You’ve been missed, Io. But we’re good. Really.” She flicked some of the bells on the back of my arm before tracing some of my more defined scars. She was facilitating between smiling and frowning. “Are you okay?”
“Yeah,” I found myself agreeing softly, surprised that I meant it. My past on Intau was fucked up, but where I was now? The people who were drawn to me and whatever supernatural-slash-ethereal power I held? The friends I made? The men I loved? I grinned gently. “Yeah, I’m okay.”
My head thumped hard, like a hammer knocked against my skullcap, and I felt myself being yanked back again. I bent forward to try and alleviate some of the pain that was building in my guts.
“Don’t think I’m supposed to be here,” I muttered.
“Shit shit shit.” Rachel waved over her grandson. “Jed, turn on that camera. Calliope’s gonna leave soon and we don’t want your uncles to completely miss her. Zane’s out with Jed’s father right now, your first nephew, picking up a new freezer, otherwise he would’ve been here, too. Spike and Bomber’ll lose their shit.”
“What do I say?” I looked at the lens on the back of Jed’s phone.
“Whatever you want, honey. Whatever you want.”
I felt self-conscious with my new body, rubbing a hand over my mouth that jutted a little from my new tusks. My wings fluttered nervously, glitter all but pouring off them. I tapped my claws to my upper lip.
“Honey, you’re gorgeous. Now talk.” Rachel rolled her hand and squinted. “Is it my old eyes or are you disappearing?”
Shit, I was.
My body was getting hazy and I had a feeling I’d reached the end of my allotted time in my old world. There was a good chance I wasn’t welcome in this plane or on this planet anymore and the option of going back was turning into a necessity.
“I miss you guys,” I told the phone. I had to swallow the lump in my throat to be heard better. “I don’t have time to tell you what’s happened with me and over all this time, but I want you to know that I’ve missed you all every day of my life away. I’m okay. If you can believe it, I’m pretty much a queen now. Awesome, right? And look at this shit!” I held my arms and wings out wide, showcasing my body to whoever was going to watch the video. Rachel and Jed’s eyes both widened with something akin to awe and I thought my brothers would have a similar reaction. Hopefully they didn’t think I was some CGI affect and cruel joke.
I knew how to fix that…
“Don’t know if you guys have done it, being it’s been so long since we were kids and y’all might not remember, but go back to our spot at the old house. Bring a metal detector. I made a time-capsule when I was still a rugrat. Got a couple of your things in there, too, that I filched. Sorry not sorry. I wrote letters. There were ones for Ma and Pop, but…well…”
“It’s okay, Io,” Rachel whispered when I couldn’t choke the words out after a handful of seconds that was shifting closer to a minute.
“I love you guys. I love y’all so damned much. Never forget that.”
When Jed tapped the record button off and pocketed it, he was still looking at me like I was the next attraction at Ripley’s. His eyes flicked momentarily
to my thigh, though, when I shifted on my feet as another disorienting wave hit me. He grimaced, sheepish and apologetic. He went so far as to scrub his hand over the back of his neck in an ‘aw shucks’ manner.
“Sorry for shootin’ ya, ma’am.”
“You shot her?!” It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her that I’d had worse, but I didn’t. Instead, I lunged forward to hug her again while I still could. She startled, but quickly wrapped her frail arms around me to embrace me back.
“I love you, too, Rach. I’m sorry I wasn’t here and that I can’t stay, but you have to know I will forever be grateful for our friendship and what you’ve done for my family. I’m happy that you are family.” I kissed her temple shakily and wrapped us both in the warmth of my wings. “Thank you. Miss you. Love you.”
“Love you, too, grrrr…”
She meant to say ‘girl’, only I was taken away from her and the world I was born to. I fell through her like she’d turned into the mist my wings could sometimes alter to. I hit my knees in the sand and snuffled embarrassingly. Yet, I could feel a hint of a bittersweet smile on my lips.
It wasn’t the closure I imagined for my old life – hadn’t even contemplated closing the door in that world – but it took a massive weight off my soul to have it. It meant everything to be able to say goodbye.
Deep in my soul, I knew this was it.
Calliope Warren was dead. …Long live Innintani Calliope, Taytani of Luintak.
I always wanted to say some shit like that.
Snapping my wings out, I peered up into a now-familiar sky and took flight. This time my head was clear when I rocketed onward, my thoughts only for the brutal male I’d welcomed into my heart and who had, I suspected, been destined for me as much as I was destined for Intau. He rescued me not-so-long ago and now it was my turn to rescue him.
…I broke through from paradise to chaos.
Chapter Thirty
“You stupid motherfucker,” I sneered down at the massacre occurring far beneath my feet as I hovered in the sky over the encampment where my man was committing unforgivable crimes.
Rage burned in me when I saw the way whole families were fleeing the nearby village in mass. It was Blackburhn all over again. Senseless warring and fighting. Then, I and countless other innocents had been in the port-city. The Udon hadn’t cared and charged relentlessly forward, burning it probably near to the ground and taking slaves as it went. Now, I was ‘dead’. What was endless slaughter supposed to accomplish? It wasn’t going to bring me back.
It wasn’t the point that I did come back because, regardless of how anyone acted, the chances were high that I was going to be reincarnated again. Kor was throwing a deadly tantrum. That was all.
Time for him to be grounded.
Swooping down low towards the flames licking up a pillau, I pulled my spear from my back. It made a pleasant snicking sound as it slid from its leather sheath. Goosebumps pebbled my skin and I admitted silently to liking the sound. Well, I liked it when I was holding the weapon. I couldn’t imagine relishing in the sound if someone was pulling a blade on me again.
The flames didn’t touch me even as I arrowed through them, the power of my wings all but snuffing them out for my passing. My second eyelids were shuttered close, protecting my eyes from ash and glowing embers.
I used one end of my bladed spear to knock aside the ax one of the Zikta was arcing in a killing blow to another male’s neck. The loud clang of steel meeting steel was louder than the roaring combatants. I gloried in the shock stamped across both their faces. Even more, I was empowered when the both of them – foes for entirely wrong reasons – hit their knees to bow deeply to my disappearing form. Any others nearby, too, genuflected immediately, their battles forgotten with the majesty of my wings glowing almost brighter than the flames.
“Where is the Tohtahk?” My demand was thundered into the wind. A snap of my left hand, wrist-blade extended, cleaved an arrow in two which had been aimed somewhere near my stomach. A harsh beat of my wings in the direction of the archer had the male screaming as pure energy blasted him clean off his feet and into the arms of a passing Mahzri. The beast grabbed him up, easily separating his head from his torso with a sickening crunch and squelch.
I grimaced. I knew not everyone would be able to be saved from this travesty, but I was hoping most would get the clue that I wanted it to stop. Now.
“Taytani…we thought…”
“Where is the Tohtahk?!” My shout brought thunder and lightning with it. The whole world seemed to freeze around us, as though God had hit the stop button on the remote of life.
“Near the chasm,” one of the Zikta quickly called out, his arm waving to gesture where I thought south was. I bobbed my head in acknowledgement before pivoting that way. I was close enough to the kneeling warriors that the edges of my one dipping wing skimmed a few of them. They gasped loudly, but I didn’t have time to linger to see why. Their inhales didn’t sound pained, so they weren’t at the top of my list to worry over.
It was an obstacle course of collapsing and burning pillau that I wove through. I could’ve gone high and fast, avoiding the bulk of the destruction and warring, but I wasn’t here just to get my man. I was here to show that I meant business and this fighting had to stop.
My spear clipped a few Tauren, but it was mostly other weapons I aimed for. My wings carried me at impossible speeds, so I could utilize quite a bit of force in a single strike if I just maintained my grip. Lightning blasted in tune to every clang of my blades against others, their ferocity echoing my inner turmoil.
When I finally spotted Kor, he was looming over an equally large male whom sneered up at him. Kor was bloodied – or it was just the splatterings of his victims wetting his nearly-naked body – but the other was a mess of tattered skin and hacked limbs. He had one of his arms chopped just beneath his elbow and his intestines were halfway poked out from a deep wound near where he’d have had a bellybutton if he were human.
“Imposter!” I knew the word the downed male shouted up at Kor. I could hear it clearly even from the great distance I still held from them. I was gaining fast, though. I hoped I was fast enough.
“You slew Her. You killed my Taytani.”
Kor’s accusation was lethal, his tone dark. He lifted a foot and smashed it down onto the other male’s shin, snapping bone. The other one howled in some mixture of agony and rage.
“She was no Taytani of mine! Imposter Innintani! I only regret not being able to take her head as trophy and fuck that lying mouth as her soul moved to rot in Saluumotu.”
The great Tohtahk bellowed, his whole body locking up like he’d been suddenly struck by one of my lightning bolts. He whirled his blade in his right hand, arced it over his head, and braced to bring it down.
He didn’t make it.
With my own cry, I landed in front of the downed male and crossed my wings in front of me like a shield. I didn’t feel the blade strike nor did I see Kor through the brutal shine of them, but I did feel his aura crashing into mine. I grunted from the impact of it, then groaned when his and mine embraced.
My wings dripped down and away, though not removed from my back, and allowed me to glower up at the silver-eyed stare of my man. He was looking at me like he’d never seen me before – maybe even like he didn’t see me at all – and the sharpened, blood-soaked edge of his blade was millimeters from where my wings had just been.
He blinked, slowly.
“Stand down, uum Drake,” I growled slowly, but meaningfully. He still didn’t move. Didn’t so much as blink.
I sensed movement from behind me and turned my head to look over my shoulder. The foul-mouthed fool was dying quickly, the liquid glimmer of life in his black eyes draining away, but he wasn’t out of it enough not to know who saved him. His jaw and lips flapped wordlessly.
Maybe it made me a bad person, but I didn’t have the urge to heal him even though I knew I could with my amplified power. Not after overhearing his statemen
t about fucking my beheaded mouth. If he was actually the asshole that shot the killing blow to my throat, I might’ve forgiven that. There was no redemption for sadism and depravity like his necrophiliac-self, though. Not the kind I could provide, anyway.
“You felled the wrong biis’a, bishtak,” I uttered coldly to his dying form. My wings twitched in agitation.
“You are…you are…”
“I am Innintani Calliope. I pray you make wiser decisions in your next life…if you are given the gift of such by the One.” With that solemn note, I gave him my full back. I wouldn’t watch him pass into death. He would die alone and I thought that was a fitting punishment.
You’re an evil bitch, honey.
Kor’s blade remained clutched in one hand, but it had dropped lifelessly to his side. His free hand was reached out to me, though not touching, and I knew he was trying to discern if I was real or not.
I stepped into him so I could slap him hard across the face.
Blink. One slow-ass blink.
“Kisa‘uu,” he rasped, his knees shaking. His expression was shuttered, but his body told on him. He was very close to collapsing.
“I am very, very upset with you, uum Drake.”
“Kisa’uu,” he repeated even softer. He was cracking. His attention was riveted onto my face, but his hand was straying towards one of my wings. I pulled them around us both, swallowing us away from the world and giving us protection I relished. It was nice not to be susceptible anymore, to know that I could protect myself and others where I couldn’t before.
“You should not have done this, uum Tohtahk,” I rumbled in upset at him, gesturing vaguely to the corpse behind me. I had felt his aura snuff out moments ago. I didn’t feel bad about it…fucking motherfucker might’ve been one of the few that deserved death. “I was gone. Killing was not going to bring me back.”
“Calliope,” he started to chant my name much like Ruune had when I died in his arms. “Uum Taytani. Uum biis’a. I saw You…I was not there…uumat.”