Fairy, Texas

by Margo Bond Collins

  “We’ll take care of it, Laney,” Josh said.

  “We,” I repeated. “You and Mason. Working together.”

  They shared a quick, guilty look.

  “Great,” I said. “You know what? Fine. I don’t care. Just get me out of here.”

  I stomped to the door and reached out to open it, but my hand was shaking too badly. Abruptly, I sat down on the cold concrete floor. It wasn’t just my hand.

  “Come on, Laney,” Mason said quietly behind me. “Let me take you somewhere safe.”

  “What about you, Josh?” I demanded, staring back at him.

  “I’ll catch up soon,” he said. He and Mason shared a significant glance.

  I took a deep breath and reached for Mason’s outstretched hand. “Okay,” I said. “But I want answers. Real ones.”

  Mason nodded and glanced back at Josh for confirmation.

  “Okay,” Josh said.

  “And a railroad spike of my own,” I added.

  Josh held it out, and Mason passed it to me. Blood slicked the pointed end; the head was sticky with it. I gripped the spike tightly.

  Mason pulled open the door and we stepped out into the night.

  “Where are we going?” I asked as we moved away from the door.

  “Back to Josh’s house.”

  “He thinks that’s a safe place?” I squeaked. “That’s where those guys grabbed me last time!”

  “Technically, they grabbed you outside of Josh’s. You’ll be safe inside.”

  “Can’t I just go home?” Although, even as I asked, I knew that by “home” I meant the house in Atlanta that Mom had sold before we moved to Fairy.

  Besides, even if I could have moved back into that house, there was no way I was going to be able to go back home. Not really. I knew too much. I’d already seen too much. I would spend the rest of my life listening for the sound of giant bat-shaped wings, searching for figures shimmering in and out of my vision.

  It was no good. I was in this until the end.

  “No,” Mason answered. “It has to be Josh’s, at least until we get your house secured. You ready to go?”

  “I guess so. Are we, um, flying?”

  “Yes,” he said with a slight smile. “Put your arms around my neck.”

  I tucked the spike into the pocket of my jeans, stepped in close to Mason, and tentatively wrapped my arms around him, like we were dancing.

  “Now hang on.”

  I didn’t know what to expect, really. The other guy had grabbed me by the waist and dangled me across much of north-central Texas on the way over here. Mason scooped me up into his arms like he was carrying a child. I laced my fingers tightly behind his neck as he took off into the air.

  “Oh!” I said, as my stomach lurched.

  “Uh-uh,” Mason said. “No more heaving.”

  “I’m fine,” I said. And, surprisingly enough, I was. I wasn’t frozen in fear, as I had been on the way over. I felt perfectly safe in Mason’s arms.

  Which was probably stupid.

  But at that moment, I didn’t care.

  I wasn’t dead. Eddie and Pete and Sims hadn’t done . . . whatever awful thing it was they had planned. I refused to examine that thought too closely. And Mason was taking me someplace safe.

  After all the ways I had tried to avoid him in the last week, the irony of feeling safe with Mason was not lost on me. But it seemed comparatively unimportant at the moment, lost as I was in the euphoria of having survived my encounter with the other demons. The non-Fairy demons. The non-Fairy fairies.

  I giggled, perhaps a bit hysterically.

  “You okay?” Mason asked above the sound of his wings beating against the air.

  “Just fine,” I said, clasping my hands together even tighter and leaning my cheek against his chest. “Absolutely fine.”

  He gave me a disbelieving look, but shrugged and kept flying.

  Chapter Thirteen

  The party was still in full swing at Josh’s house. Mason had shifted us into the ethereal not far out from the workshop, and we had flown home wrapped in gauzy quiet.

  Now, he landed lightly in the front yard and prepared to set me on my feet.

  “Wait,” I said. “We can’t walk into the middle of the party looking like this.”

  Mason glanced down at our clothing, spattered in various unpleasant substances—vomit, blood, and something on Mason’s shoulder that I suspected might be a fleck of torn demon wing. Plus Mason’s face and arms were bruised and scratched, though I could already see the abrasions healing. Josh was right; fairies healed faster in the ethereal plane.

  Mason nodded. “Okay. Don’t let go of me. I think I can keep you here if you don’t let go.” He dropped me to my feet. I waited until he reached behind his neck and took one of my hands to unwind me from him.

  We moved through the crowd, unseen, unfelt. At one point I brushed by a girl I recognized from English class. Her shoulder bumped mine and I started, worried that I’d give us away, but she ignored me entirely, oblivious to my passing.

  “So,” I said, aiming for a light tone, “Ever do this in the girls’ locker room?”

  Mason blushed a bright red.

  “Oh my God, you have!” I said. I started to pull away from him, but a tug of his hand on mine reminded me not to let go.

  “Can’t you just hold the questions until we’re safe?” he muttered.

  I had relaxed a little bit, but I was immediately on alert again. “I thought we were safe once we got inside Josh’s,” I said, as I tried to look in all directions at once.

  “Almost,” Mason muttered. He pulled me through the living room and into the kitchen. “In here,” he said, pulling me into the walk-in pantry. He slowly swung the door shut behind us after making sure no one in the kitchen was watching.

  “Hold the door shut,” he said. He finally dropped my hand so that he would have his free. I held on to the doorknob while he felt along the edge of a shelf until his fingers hit something.

  “In here,” he said. The pantry shelves swung back on a door, and revealed a staircase illuminated by a bare bulb. “Come on.” Mason gestured me ahead of him and closed the door behind us.

  At the bottom of the stairs we turned a corner and stepped into a fairly standard basement rec room. A big television dominated one corner, a pool table another. Absolutely normal. Except, of course, for the fact that this one was reached by a secret staircase behind the pantry.

  But I didn’t spend much time examining the room. An older man, maybe in his forties, stood in the middle of the room. We’d clearly interrupted him as he paced back and forth.

  His eyes were exactly the color of Josh’s.

  “Mason,” he said, relief coloring his voice. “You okay?”

  “Yes, sir,” Mason replied.

  “And Josh?”

  “He stayed behind to clean up.”

  The man turned toward me. “Hi, Laney," he said.. "I’m Zachary Bevington. Josh’s father.”

  “Hello, Mr. Bevington. Nice to meet you,” I replied automatically.

  Zachary Bevington looked at us critically. “We’ll need to get you cleaned up,” he said. “Come on, Laney. There’s a bathroom through here.” He held out his hand. I looked at Mason quizzically, but Mason nodded at me to go ahead, so I followed Josh’s dad.

  The bathroom was surprisingly big.

  “You should take a shower,” Mr. Bevington said. “Toss your clothes out here, and I’ll get them cleaned up for you. In the meantime…” He reached into a cabinet and pulled out a pair of sweats and a t-shirt. “These are probably too big for you, but they’ll do for now.”

  I slowly took the clothes he proffered, then shut the door.

  I took the iron spike into the shower with me, clutching it tightly as the hot water sluiced blood off of it, and me.

  I hoped the shower would help clear my head. When I came out of the bathroom, towel-drying my hair, Mason and Mr. Bevington looked up at me. Clearly they had been deep i
n discussion, and I had interrupted them.

  “You next, Mase,” Mr. Bevington said.

  Mason moved past me without a word. Josh’s father gestured to an overstuffed chair. “Have a seat. We’re just waiting for Josh to get back.”

  I slumped into the chair and ran my fingers through my wet hair. I was too tired to make conversation—and I wouldn’t have known what to say, anyway.

  I was awakened by Josh’s voice some time later.

  “It’s okay, Dad,” he said. When I looked up, I saw that he and Mason, like me, were wearing sweats and t-shirts. Josh had apparently come home while I slept and he, too, had cleaned up.

  I sat up and yawned. “What time is it?” I asked.

  “About five in the morning,” Josh said.

  It seemed like much more than five hours had passed since my friends had come to sneak me out of my house to go to a party.

  “I think it’s time you kicked out the last of your friends, Joshua,” Mr. Bevington said.

  I stared at him blankly. “So you know about the party upstairs?”

  He laughed. “I planned it, Laney.” His face clouded. “I didn’t expect such a quick response, though. I am so sorry the boys didn’t get to you sooner.”

  I turned his words over in my mind. “Get to me sooner? So you knew they were coming for me?” My voice got louder. “I was bait?”

  He shook his head. “Not exactly. Josh, get those people out of here so we can go upstairs. We’ll talk about it there.”

  I stood up. “John usually gets up by five-thirty or six,” I said. “I need to get home before he realizes I’m gone.”

  “Don’t worry about Hamilton,” Josh’s father said. “I’ll take care of him. He’ll never even notice you aren’t around.”

  “What about Kayla?” I demanded.

  “Her, too,” Mr. Bevington said. “Don’t worry, Laney. We’ll take care of you.”

  “Like you did last night? Because, I’ve got to say, I’m not feeling terribly confident in your caretaking abilities. Do you know what those guys almost did to me? And what about you two?” I didn’t wait for an answer before turning on Josh and Mason. “Suddenly you’re a team?”

  Josh blushed and stammered while Mason looked back and forth between us in apparent confusion.

  “He,” I said, pointing at Josh, “said that you,” pointing to Mason, “were ‘Bartlef’s boy’.” I made sarcastic bunny-ear air quotation marks around the term.

  Mason’s mouth fell open as he swiveled to face Josh.

  “Sorry, dude,” Josh mumbled. “Trying to give you an easy out.”

  Mason clamped his jaw shut. “I’m in this, okay?” he said through gritted teeth. “I’ll deal with the fallout later.”

  “What the hell are you two talking about?” Suddenly my eyes filled up with tears and I sat back down again with a thump.

  “Um. I’ll be upstairs,” Josh said nervously. “Clearing out the party guests.”

  “I’ll be with him,” Mason said. The two hurried up the stairs.

  I spoke without looking up from the carpet. “What is going on around here? I feel like I’ve only got half the story. And if I’m going to . . . if you’re going to . . .” I could hear my voice start to crack and I couldn’t stop it. “If you’re going to use me as a lure, as bait when you go demon fishing, then. . . .” I began sobbing and couldn’t quit. But I was determined to finish my sentence, so I sobbed in between words, “you had better . . . tell me . . . exactly . . . what’s going . . . on!” The sentence ended on a wail, just as Josh called down the stairs.

  “All clear, Dad!” he said.

  * * * *

  Upstairs, the dawn light was filtering in through the living-room blinds. I sat on the couch, occasionally sniffling into an actual cloth kerchief—the cowboy kind, a red background with black paisley thingies on it—that Mr. Bevington had brought me from his room. I still clutched the iron spike in my other hand.

  The remains of the party lay strewn about the room: empty beer cans, a half-full bottle of cheap rum, a cigarette smashed into the carpet and surrounded by a black burn mark. Mr. Bevington winced when he saw that. Guess that’s what you get for planning a party to lure me in to be your bait, I thought. But I kept the thought to myself. I was getting a little better at that. Fairy, Texas was not the place to share your secrets. Bad enough I had cried in front of them. I was going to keep my cool, I promised myself.

  “So where should we start?” Josh asked. He was sitting on the coffee table directly in front of me. He leaned forward and stared earnestly into my eyes.

  I looked away from him. “How about with the truth, for once?”

  “I told you the truth.” Out of the corner of my eye I saw him shoot a pleading glance toward his father. “At least, as much of it as I could.”

  Mr. Bevington leaned toward me as well, though he was seated in another chair across the room. “It was important for your own safety,” he said.

  “And that worked out so well.” This time I did let the sarcasm out. So much for keeping my cool. At least Mr. Bevington had the good grace to look abashed.

  “They meant well,” Mason said quietly. He was perched on the far arm of the couch.

  I spun to face him. “Don’t pretend you’re all on my side in this, Mason Collier,” I said. “You were all in on it. I’m mad at all of you.”

  Mason blushed but didn’t say anything else.

  “So?” I demanded, turning to Josh’s father.

  “What else do you want to know?” he asked.

  “Everything.”

  Josh stifled a yawn. “Can it wait until we’ve had some sleep?”

  “No! If you think I’ll be able to sleep, you’re crazy. And you’re beginning to make me feel crazy, too!”

  “Okay, okay,” Josh said. “You asked for it. Dad? You tell her.”

  Mr. Bevington studied me for a long, silent moment. “Josh told you about the Dumaya?” he finally asked.

  “Yeah. Some sort of demon-savior, and I’m supposed to ‘bear’ him.”

  “Right.” He looked down at his hands, then back up at my face. “So what do you imagine this ‘demon-savior’ might do?”

  “Do?”

  “Yes. Do. If he’s a savior, what’s he supposed to save us from? And how?”

  I shook my head, confused. “I hadn’t thought about it.”

  “Of course you haven’t,” Mr. Bevington murmured. He pressed his fingertips into his eyes. “Would you like to take a guess?”

  “Not really.” I glared at him. “I’d rather you just told me.”

  “You.”

  “Me?” I looked at Josh and Mason, hoping for some help, but they were both busy looking elsewhere.

  “Yes. He’s supposed to save us from you.”

  “But how am I a threat?”

  “Not you specifically, not as an individual. You as in humanity. You. Not us.”

  “The Dumaya is supposed to save you from us?”

  “Yes.”

  “How?”

  Mr. Bevington’s expression was bleak. “By killing you all.”

  * * * *

  I was still staring at Mr. Bevington in open-mouthed horror when the doorbell rang. He pushed himself up out of his seat and went to answer it. He greeted whoever was there and stepped out into the early morning sunshine. When the door opened again, it was John, pushing past Josh’s father.

  “You!” he said, pointing a shaking finger in my direction. He spluttered, unable to find words vile enough. His face started turning purple. He leaned over and reached out to grab my arm, but Josh’s father intercepted him.

  “Hey, Boss,” he said, pulling John around to face him. “You okay?”

  As I watched, Mr. Bevington’s entire body began glowing gently, like Josh’s had in the darkroom. Like mine had.

  John tried to turn back around toward me, but he seemed unable to pull his gaze away from Zachary Bevington’s face.

  “I thought your father didn’t
have the Power,” I whispered to Josh.

  “He doesn’t have much,” Josh amended.

  But he had enough to get John to go home, to forget he’d ever even missed me that morning. I have to admit, I was impressed.

  “Great,” Mason muttered. “Josh and I come in and save you, then I fly you home, and you’re impressed by a little memory wipe.”

  “Okay,” Josh’s father said, shutting the door and turning to face us. “Where were we?”

  Now I was staring in open-mouthed admiration.

  “Wiping out all of humanity,” Josh said drily.

  My mouth snapped closed.

  “Right,” Mr. Bevington said. “That.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I’m supposed to have this Dumaya, who is then supposed to kill off all the humans.”

  “Right,” Josh said, nodding.

  “So how does what happened tonight”—I glanced at the sunshine streaming in through the window—“fit into that plan?” I looked back and forth between the two boys. “If you two are supposed to be fighting over me, then why would Biet bring Eddie and his gang into it?”

  All three of them grew very still.

  “What?” I asked, confused. “What did I say?”

  “Biet?” Mr. Bevington asked quietly. “Hazel Biet was there?”

  “Yes,” I said. “She came in and held her hand over my stomach.” I clutched the spot that had grown so cold and shivered in memory. “And then she said something like ‘Nuh Dumaya’ and told those guys they could have me.”

  “Think very carefully,” Mr. Bevington said, sinking down onto the coffee table next to Josh. “Did what she say sound more like ‘noy Dumaya’ or ‘nay Dumaya’?”

  I shook my head. “I’m not sure. Is it that important?”

  He inhaled deeply and then let the air out of his lungs slowly. “Very,” he finally said. “It could be the difference between life and death.”

  Because what this moment needed was more melodrama. Obviously.