by Ramy Vance
“We were children, coddled by gods who ultimately did not really care about us. As proof, they left. But they did not abandon us, for they sent us here to finally prove who we are. What we are … For here we are not creatures of myths and legend. Here we are living, breathing, caring people who share one common goal. We are trying to shape this world not in the image of the heavens we once belonged to, but into a new heaven. A messy, confusing heaven. A heaven that was created for all.”
Aldie lifted his hands into the air, and as he did, a flurry of hands, talons, claws and hooves began clapping wildly. “Go forth,” Aldie called over the resounding crowd. “Go forth and claim this world. Rebuild your heaven. Find your home.”
And with that, the crowd’s frenzy worked itself up into an absolute manic state of hooting, howling, yelping and cheering. In the 1960s, I was at The Ed Sullivan Show when The Beatles made their first U.S. television appearance, and I was at Woodstock (at least at the night concerts), so I’ve seen a crowd worked up into unified joy and hope. What Aldie did here was no different.
These Others had hope. More than hope. As long as they carried his words, they had a real chance. Not something I thought possible from a self-help guru, but here we were.
To say I was impressed would have been understating it. I was awed by Aldie and his ability to help. So much so, I could forgive him his tricks. But then he had to go and ruin it by opening his stupid elven mouth. “Don’t forget to sign up to our mailing list. Bonus prize: a free seminar on Empowering the Giant Within.”
“Yuck.”
“What?” he asked. Then, shaking his head. “Never mind. My plane and Paradise Lot await.”
THE BOY WHO CRIED HYENA AND THE BOY WHO DIDN’T ANSWER
A ldie’s private plane was surprisingly cramped for such a high-ticket item. Four chairs and a cockpit, with a wee bit of space in the back for luggage. I looked around the tiny cabin, muttering to myself, “Thank the GoneGods I’m tiny.”
“What was that, princess? Unhappy with your accommodations? You should try hitching a ride with that valkyrie. She was giving you googly eyes and—”
“No, no … I’m sorry. I don’t mean to sound ungrateful. It’s just that, I don’t know, you’ve always been Mr. Lavish. I guess I was expecting more.”
“The self-help biz doesn’t pay as much as you’d think.”
“But you have so many fans.”
“And most of them can only afford to attend through our scholarship programs, which essentially provides free admission. Then there’s booking the theater, the flyers, promos. The only reason I could afford this event was because some strange benefactor paid for everything but my time.”
“Enoch, drawing you in.”
“Indeed. If I had known that torture was part of the package, I might have negotiated for a retainer.”
“And this plane?”
“A gift from a gnome. He’s a mechanic in New Jersey, and this old bucket was abandoned long ago. He fixed it up, made it sky worthy and gifted it to me so that I could do what I do.”
As he spoke, Deirdre ambled past him, choosing one of the seats. She sat in exhaustion, fumbling with her seatbelt as she did.
She may have been fully healed, but she was still out of it. A changeling warrior needs nature and sunlight to truly heal from any battle, and I knew we needed to get her a mud bath as soon as possible.
Aldie went to help her, guiding the clip in.
“Thank you Son of Leeq.”
“Ahhh, you’ve heard of my father,” Aldie said as he finished strapping her in.
“Of course. Every fae has.”
“Then you’ve heard of me?”
Deirdre nodded.
“And …”
“And …” Deirdre paused, choosing her next words carefully. “I have learned that legend and truth are not good traveling companions.”
“Well said, changeling warrior.” Aldie crossed both fists over his chest, a typical fae salute. Of course, it didn’t help that it looked exactly like the salute Black Panther did when greeting a fellow Wakandian, but who was I to critique thousands of years of tradition?
Egya put his head on Deirdre’s lap and the two of them sat together, waiting for the plane to take off.
“So,” I said, cutting into the awkward silence that fell over the cabin, “where’s the pilot?”
Aldie shot me one of those devilish smiles of his … the one he used when he had a real treat in mind. “Why, my dear, you’re looking at him.”
↔
“BY THE GONEGODS, NO,” I said.
“What do you mean, no?”
“I mean no. You’re the pilot? Do you even have a license?”
Aldie gave me an indignant look before meandering to the cockpit. “Of course.” Then he muttered, “The human at the licensing office told me I was very charming when she printed one out for me. Didn’t even bother to ask for proof that I’d completed flying school or anything …”
“What?”
As he sat down, he said, “Calm down and strap yourself in. Or don’t … The truth is, if this plane crashes a seatbelt isn’t going to do a damn thing for you.”
I expected Aldie to click a few buttons, flip some switches … You know, the kind of thing you saw in the movies. But he didn’t. Instead, he pulled out a clipboard and started writing some things down before pulling out a friggin’ compass (and by compass, I mean those medieval devices that help you draw a perfect circle).
“What are you doing?”
“Charting our course,” he said without looking up.
I looked at my watch. “How long will that take?”
Aldie looked up at me with genuine confusion. “Kat, you are the human. You know you can’t just get in a plane and take off. There are procedures, protocol and whatever ‘P’ words you humans have to slow things down.” He stuck his face back into his clipboard. “For a species that’s mortal, you sure have cultivated a lot of ways of wasting time. Now if you don’t mind.”
“Argh.” I sat down in a huff and tried to summon every ounce of patience I had as I counted the hours before Enoch would resume his hunt. Just when I was about to lose my friggin’ mind, Aldie clicked a few buttons and I heard a monstrous roar as the engines fired to life. Miracle of miracles—that didn’t take too long.
↔
TURNS out we weren’t going to be defeated by ‘P’ words. It was the ‘B’ in bureaucracy that was going to kill us.
We taxied to the runway, where we sat for hours before we got permission to fly. It seems that airports are real sticklers for booking a take-off time. But that time wasn’t completely wasted; I spent half of it watching the seconds tick by as our truce with Enoch was being gradually consumed by airport red-tape. The paranoid monster within me began to wonder if the delay was Enoch’s doing.
I mean, he was pretty savvy, but an Other using human red-tape against us made him positively unbeatable. I shook my head. No way an ex-angel who had spent centuries completely detached from the human world could be that cunning … could he?
The other half of our wait was spent with Aldie sitting crossed-legged on the floor as he spoke to Egya. I couldn’t hear what they were saying, but their eyes were locked as Aldie massaged his jaw. Every time I tried to ask what was going on, Aldie would shush me. And Egya would growl in that way dogs did when telling you to back off.
I took the hint and sat in one of the chairs, trying to distract myself from what was to come.
The problem with distracting yourself … it never works. Especially when you don’t have your iPad with Legally Blonde pre-loaded on it. So, my mind replayed everything that had happened in the last six months. The fights, my mom showing up, the Soul Jar … Enoch’s obsession with me. I also replayed a strange conversation I had had with an ex-vampire by the name of Lizile. It had happened when my mom showed up and used me to retrieve the Amulet of Souol.
We had traveled to her cabin, where she agreed to give me half of the amulet in excha
nge for a private chat. My mother had protested, but in the end, it was the only way to get it. And in that conversation, that strange vampire told me something I had dismissed as the ramblings of someone clearly suffering from mortal madness.
She had said I would be instrumental in the war between humans and Others. A war that, according to her, was inevitable.
But there was no war. Not yet, at least. And if you took her words in the context of what the Fates had shown Enoch, there never would be. The world would end before we got a chance to end it for ourselves.
Still, I couldn’t shake the feeling that both Enoch and Lizile were right. What if there was a war, and what if that war involved meeting some of the gods? After all, if they left, they could come back.
And since they both had a hard-on for me (well, Enoch at least. Lizile had whatever the female equivalent of a hard-on was … a clit-on, maybe?), then perhaps I was at the center of something bigger.
I shook my head. Look at you, Kat. Such a ridiculously huge ego. You’re just a human girl with a shit-ton of bad luck. Once this Soul Jar is delivered to Michael, you can go back to Montreal and finally be the normal girl you want to be.
Normal. What does that even mean? Classes, studying … boys.
Oh, boys. Like Justin. My heart skipped a beat when I thought of him and all the crap I did to him. He was probably sitting in Montreal, worried that I’d never return. I should call.
Stupid brain, won’t let me relax. If I wasn’t fretting over the fate of the world, I was fretting over the fate of my relationship.
“Aldie,” I said.
“Shuuush.”
“Do you have a phone?”
Without looking up, he nodded toward the back of the plane, where a briefcase sat.
“In the case?” I asked.
With a subtle nod, he returned to his humming.
↔
IN THE BRIEFCASE sat an old iPhone 5 without a password. I dialed Justin’s number and as it rang, I said, “I’ll pay you back for the long distance call.”
One ring, then two. And as the phone buzzed, I prayed that he didn’t answer. I prayed that it would go to voicemail so I could hang up and feel good about having made an effort to reach out.
It wasn’t my fault if he didn’t pick up, right? It takes two to tango and all that.
But I knew the real reason I was calling was because of what Enoch had shown me in that crystal ball. Justin with someone else—someone not me. A peek into the future, he’d said. And I’d thought it was all a bunch of baloney, but here I was, calling Justin anyway.
It kept ringing. And ringing.
Finally, it did go to voicemail. As soon as I heard Justin’s pre-recorded voice, I pulled the phone away from my ear.
I couldn’t say what I needed to say over voicemail. I just couldn’t.
The old me would have mumbled something about wanting to talk to him, and she would have sounded vaguely penitent without ever saying sorry. The new me just hung up—I would get my chance to do it right when I got back to Montreal—and sat down in my seat.
Or at least I tried to, because as I turned, I was greeted by a very human, very naked Egya. “Hello Kat,” he said, not covering up his, well, his … his.
“You’re back.” I looked past him. “Burnt some time?”
Aldie shook his head. “Nope, the boy did it on his own. I just guided him as he searched for the power to transform.”
“What?” I said, my mind reeling with the possibilities. “You still have magic?”
Egya shook his head. “No, I did it without magic.”
“How?”
“Aldie. He showed me to channel my inner”—Egya paused, searching for the word—“chi? Chakras? I have no idea; I was never into that kind of stuff.”
“Actually, I just helped your breath. It is amazing what you can do if you can just slow the mind, oxygenate the blood and well … just be.”
“Come again?” I said.
“Never mind. The point is that magic isn’t just unknown forces being bent to our will. Sometimes magic is our own bodies listening to our needs. Egya here spent centuries being able to transform into a hyena at will. He was forced into that form not because Enoch wanted him to be a hyena, but because that was all Enoch’s little trick could pull off. Think about it: if he really wanted to make Egya harmless, he would have turned him into a rabbit or a gerbil. Not a hyena. So, whatever he cast on your friend was designed to unlock something that was already within him. What was once unlocked remains unlocked. And once you open a door—well, doors are designed for you to walk through in both directions.”
“Ugh, more self-help platitudes.”
“Call it what you want, but through some breathing techniques and guided meditation, I showed Egya how to walk through that door.”
“Does that mean he can turn back?” I turned to Egya. “Can you?”
Egya took three deep breaths and said, “I don’t know. But I feel different.”
“He should. In theory. There are studies that seem to indicate that were-transformation isn’t just magic, but rather two states of being in one body. I don’t think he’ll be able to be fully hyena again, but certainly he can bring out a number of traits. An elongated nose, clawed fingers. Some extra fur to keep himself warm at night. That kind of stuff.” Aldie reached into one of his overhead compartments and pulled out a CD. “I did a whole seminar on it. Here’s the recording. Very low attendance, unfortunately. I guess were-creatures who are human now weren’t really interested in unleashing their inner beasts again. That, or it sounded too far-fetched for them. Whatever it was, that was the talk that made me decide to shift my focus onto Others. There isn’t a day that goes by that I’m not thankful for that failure.”
“Arrgh. You are too much, Aldie,” I said. But even as those words came out, what I really felt was that he wasn’t too much, but rather—something else. In a good way. A very good way.
Deirdre stirred, and seeing a naked Egya before her, said in a sleepy tone, “Oh good, we’re allowed to be naked in public. Finally,” before passing out again.
↔
EGYA WAS a good eight inches taller than Aldie and had considerably more bulk that the dark elf, so when he borrowed some clothes, they only wrapped around him, barely concealing anything. He looked like the Incredible Hulk mid-transformation, and I wasn’t entirely sure that it was an improvement … especially because Egya was damn hot. Still, at least his bits weren’t flapping in the wind anymore.
I gave the stupid chuckler a big hug. “So good to have you back.”
“Good to be back.”
We lingered there a little too long. I guessed I worried about him more than I’d thought. “I, ahh, should really thank Aldie again. He’s put everything at risk and …”
“Awkward hug?” Egya giggled. “Can’t express your feelings for too long, Kat … you might finally become that human you want to be.” And with that, he chuckled as a giant grin painted his face.
“Here’s a feeling I can express,” I said, giving him the finger as I walked to the cockpit.
“Thank you,” I said to Aldie.
“For?”
“For Egya, for everything.”
Aldie did that fists-crisscrossed-on-the-chest thing. “I owe you.”
“For what?”
“You know.”
“For breaking up with me? That’s long gone. Water under the bridge,” I lied. It was a wound that hadn’t yet completely healed, but with everything that had happened over the past two days, it was starting to.
“No, I do not owe you for breaking up with you. That was necessary for all the reasons I mentioned before. I owe you for how I broke up with you. I was unnecessarily cruel.”
“Yeah, I’ll say.” I thought back to that evening. It was a long story, but let us just say that he got engaged to an elf in a very public way on our anniversary.
“I did it that way because I was closing a door.”
“Because doo
rs are designed for you to walk both ways through them. Yeah, I’ve heard.”
He nodded. “I needed to close that door. And being cruel was the only way I knew how.”
“It’s fine.”
“Is it?”
“No, but it will be.”
“That is enough for now,” he said before his brow furled with concern. “That spell Enoch cast on your friend that unlocked his doorway to transformation? Your beast still resides within you. He could use it on you. He could turn you back into a vampire.”
“No,” I said. “He needs me intact, with my soul in my body. Vampires lose their soul as soon as they’re transformed.”
“And if he had a spell that would allow you to keep your soul?”
“A vampire with a soul … who ever heard of that?” I giggled.
Aldie gave me a blank look. He obviously wasn’t a Whedon fan. “Whatever he wants or does not want from you … a spell like the one he used on Egya is powerful magic. Magic that even gods would struggle wielding. You don’t know what he is capable of.”
“Sadly, I do,” I said.
“And …”
“And I need to get this troublesome thing to the one angel who knows how to deal with him.”
“Michael.”
“Michael. Now if only we could take off and—”
As if my prayers were answered, the plane’s comms came on. We were approved for takeoff.
Yay, now all we needed to do was fly halfway across the world to convince an archangel that we weren’t a threat while trying to hand him one of the most powerful magical items on Earth while being hunted by an ex-angel and his henchman.
No problemo …
ANGELS AND AIR CONTROL
“Big problemo,” I muttered as the plane rattled and shook. After a relatively smooth flight from Okinawa, we were under celestial siege by one enormous and very determined angel.
Oche.
He was flying right next to us, diving in and out of view as he brandished a huge sword in our faces.
I looked at my watch. We still had six hours before the truce ended, and given we were flying over Paradise Lot airspace, that should have given us plenty of time to land and find Michael. But instead, we had an angel riding our ass. “We still have hours left,” I yelled.