“Magical fire! Oh my God, you are a wizard. Holy Hannah!” The sparks danced from my head again, forming a dim aura around my shoulders. Oh crap. “I don’t mean to alarm you, but is there a reason I’m on fire, too?”
The glass trembled in his hands as he looked torn whether to drench the card or me. “You’re not on fire, Jessie, but you are . . . glowing.”
“I’m glowing?” I backed away. Gary splashed the smoldering card with water, finally putting it out. “Why am I glowing?”
But all he could do was stare at me. “Oh my God, it worked. You are the shiny one!” Then came a crash as the glass slipped from his fingers.
I stepped forward and he actually flinched. Oh no, he was not playing this game. There was no way he could be afraid of me while I was terrified of him. I grabbed hold of him before he could scramble away and gave him a good, hard shake.
“Gary Bates, you had better tell me everything, I swear. . .” Strange as it seemed, the angrier I got, the brighter my hair shone. By this point Gary had to squint at the neon glow radiating around me. “What is a shiny one, Gary? Am I some kind of wizard, too, now?”
“No. Technically you’d be a witch,” he whispered, all the while staring at my head.
“Fine, am I a—?”
He shook his head. Of course, it couldn’t be that easy.
“What’s going on, then? And if you so much as try another card trick, I won’t be held responsible for what happens.”
“It . . . it worked,” he stammered again. “I can’t believe it actually worked.”
I stared at the crimson hairs on my arm. “Did you do this to me? Is this . . . some kind of spell?” A sick feeling welled up in my guts, something halfway between righteous indignation and too many tot-chos.
Gary took a deep breath and went to the fridge. He pulled out a couple of Japanese ramune sodas—strawberry—and handed one to me.
I raised an eyebrow.
“Before you ask, it was just a guess since you like anime.”
“My favorite is grape, but this works.” We both popped the balls into the chamber, enjoying a moment of sugary normalcy before I glared at him again.
He chuckled nervously. “I actually prepared what to say, practiced it in the mirror even. I thought I’d have the right words for you and here I am babbling and offering you soda instead.”
“Did you do this?” I asked, my voice breaking more than it should. Ugh, Gary wasn’t the only one fumbling for a basic grasp of the English language here.
“Remember our conversation about superpowers?”
“I remember a lot of discussions about superpowers, but how about you cut through the pop culture crap and just spit it out?”
“Fine. This world we live in, it’s a lot stranger than people give it credit for. Magic, monsters, and . . . other stuff, it’s all real. Those things you read about in stories and myths that seem too crazy to be true, well, some of it has more basis in fact than most people believe. There really used to be swords in the stone, dragons interrupting breakfast—”
“Vampires and werewolves?”
“Vampires, yes. The latter, not so much.”
“Too bad.”
Gary nodded. “The point is, something happened a long time ago and no one is quite sure why. We just know the weird kinda faded into the background and the normal became, well, normal.”
“Except you just said it’s not normal.”
“I’m getting to that. You see, for all the crazy things that went bump in the night, there was always another side to the story—a natural response, like Godzilla showing up whenever some other monster tries to destroy Japan. Whenever humanity was threatened, there were always champions: defenders . . . paladins . . . warriors of the light. The greater the adversary, the mightier the champion. Don’t ask me why. I guess even the supernatural has its own version of Newton’s Laws, but what I’m saying is you’re the Godzilla in this equation.”
Not the worst metaphor he could have used. “These shiny ones you mentioned?”
He nodded. “That’s one name for them anyway.”
“But I thought you said the weird faded away.”
“It did. Everything went poof hundreds of years ago. The monsters retreated to the shadows and there haven’t been any more Icons either—that’s another name for what you are, by the way. No one knows what happened, but. . .”
“There haven’t been any more?”
“Until now.”
A chill crept up my spine.
“This is a lot to take in, isn’t it?” he asked, gnawing his lip.
“You have no idea,” I replied, more sparks rising from my scalp. “But how. . .?”
“I come from a long line of seers,” Gary continued, his voice barely above a whisper again. “You know, prophets and shit. Talk about pressure in career choices when your dad could literally see your destiny from the moment you were born.”
“So that’s what you are . . . how you knew. . .?”
“Sorta. I’m not exactly what my parents wanted, and I’ve lied to them a lot. Rather than take up my expected role as a seer, I decided to study as a wizard with my aunt. I didn’t want anything to do with prophecies, because you know what? They suck! No matter how hard you try, once you look ahead, you never live in the present anymore. Fate is . . . Fate is an asshole that only shows you all the bad shit instead of lottery numbers and boobs. But the only way the Amherst coven would take me was if I’d do a little side predicting for the headmaster. He and my aunt both consult for the Association of Unaffiliated Prophets, Mediums, and Soothsayers. It’s like the union for people who can see the future but don’t want to spend eternity locked in a vault with their eyes gouged out.”
“What?!”
“Sorry, just thinking about what sometimes happens to people like me. It’s kinda my own personal rabbit hole. My mom stayed an independent contractor, but my dad, he decided that the present just wasn’t for him anymore after. . .
“Look, prophets don’t get called in to see happy stuff, okay? There’s a theory that the all quiet on the supernatural front is only temporary, and that one day soon the reprieve will be over and the worst of the worst are going to come back and scour the Earth.”
“Are we talking living in interesting times, or full-on Revelations here?” I didn’t really want the answer, but I probably needed to know.
“No one knows for sure. Even the best prophets only see glimpses of potential futures, and until it gets close, the slightest change can cause unforeseen ripples in fate. Of course, that never stops anyone from trying. The Unaffiliated PMS Association—”
Maybe I shouldn’t have giggled quite so much, but come on! For all the weirdness, it hit me that Gary had PMS on his side. After a moment he seemed to realize it and chuckled, too.
“The union,” he corrected, “pretty much had one job. See, there’s a fairly major prophecy about the Freewill—”
“Freewill? Isn’t that a sixties song?”
Gary shook his head. “I wish. We’re talking an all-mighty ubervamp who’s supposed to herald this new era. The PMS Association was tasked with finding where and when it would appear.”
“An ubervamp? Like Dracula on steroids?”
Gary nodded grimly. “The worst of the worst, but my mom and her team found him first, over in England. At least, all the signs were there. He had the name of a conqueror, a dizzying fount of obscure knowledge, and the preternatural ability to laugh in the face of danger. He also happened to be a trained killer, guitar prodigy, and scientific genius. If this guy was ever turned, we’d be toast. Fortunately, our people at the Falcon Academy found him before that could happen, though, and cast a bunch of powerful protection magic to make sure that if a vampire ever bit him, he’d simply die and not be reborn. It was awesome. Fate was stymied, and no one had to be killed or anything.”
“Falcon—?”
“That’s just the name of the local coven.”
“Oh. Well, that’s good then.” We exchang
ed a look. “There is a but coming, isn’t there?”
He nodded. “A big one. Maybe it was fate or maybe they were just wrong, but rumors are flying in the monster underground that the ubervamp showed up anyway, not too long ago. Mom’s bosses were none too pleased. In the prophecy game you’re only as good as your last prediction, after all.”
“So, your mom aside, what you’re saying is that there’s some all-powerful, bloodsucking beast out there?”
“In a nutshell.”
“What the hell does that have to do with . . . oh, no, oh no, no, no . . . you are not about to hit me with Newton’s Second Law again, are you? Can’t King Kong handle this one?”
“The ubervamp appears and the universe spits out a counterpart, a check and a balance to keep us all from being squished when the bad guys get rowdy. That means a shiny one will rise up in response.” He pointed his finger at me.
“Oh boy.” Now I had clammy hands to go with the chill up my spine.
Gary rattled his ramune bottle as he seemingly searched for the right words. “When there hasn’t been an Icon for so long, it gets a little hazy about how to find one. The worst part is, the very nature of their power means you can’t scry the person once they manifest, so the best any of us could think of was to comb the archives for prophecies about holy warriors and chosen ones.” He let out a laugh. “Do you know how hard it is to find a translator for Sumerian or Ancient Aramaic these days? And most don’t even have any details about the chosen warrior specifically—just how awesome they are.”
“So, what? Lucky guess?”
“Educated guess. I compiled a list of prophecies and hero qualities and then a hacker buddy of mine at UMass used that, along with some coven resources, to calculate probable candidates. Your name was at the top of the list, with a 71.6% chance of being a potential Icon, way above anyone else we could find in the state, so—”
“I’m an educated guess?”
“Yes, but so is most future scrying.” Gary shrugged uncomfortably. “But it makes perfect sense. You’re from a family of warriors, and if recent fiction has taught us anything, it’s the teenage girl who saves the day. Anyway, I found a prophecy from the Meliae—they’re forest spirits—that described their chosen one as a fierce warrior maiden with golden eyes and hair like fire. She’s supposed to rise up, receive their blessing, and save the day. Combined with other stories passed down around the world about similar creatures—”
“Creatures?”
“Heroes. No offense.”
“None taken. Except I don’t . . . didn’t have ‘hair like fire’ until this morning.”
“True, but I doubt their seers foresaw the invention of hair dye,” a new voice said from somewhere behind me. Wait, I knew that raspy tone.
I whirled around to face the intruder, sparks dancing from my head once more. Oh man, I either had to watch my temper or buy an asbestos hair net.
“You!” I cried, taking in the platinum hair and over-botoxed skin. The woman from the drug store stood before me, covering her mouth as if stifling a yawn.
“Jessie, meet my Aunt Phil. Aunt Phil, this is Jessie Flores.”
“You did this?! What was in that damn dye?”
“Whatever the package said was in it. I got it from some Indian market over in Shrewsbury. I’ll give you the address if you want more. Now, did Gary explain how the whole Icon thing works, or did he just get distracted and ramble?” The newcomer, Phil, strode confidently into the kitchen and pulled a box out of a drawer. I tensed up until I saw the contents. Once she’d slapped another nicotine patch to her bare arm, she let out a content sigh. “He did give you the spiel about how having faith in yourself could save us all from the upcoming darkness, right?”
“Who are you people?” I cried, staring helplessly between Gary and this smug fake retail clerk.
She turned to him. “You rambled, didn’t you?”
“I might have . . . a little”
Phil seemed to weigh what to say next. Did she have blips to help her out, too? Whatever the case, she decided to snag a bottle of wine from the fridge, unscrew the lid, and pour herself a generous glass in a Solo cup. “Okay. How about this? Think of us as your fairy godfamily,”
“Wait. Fairies are real, too?”
Chapter Eight: Bibbity Bobbity Boo Hoo
“You seem kind of stressed.” Aunt Phil opened the kitchen window and whipped out a proper cigarette. A tiny flame danced off her fingertip, which she used to light it—acting as if this were the most normal thing in the world. “I get it, I really do. It’s not every day the world turns upside down. But you should be grateful, kid—”
“Grateful? Really?” The smell of smoke wafted my way. Having a full-blown hissy fit in a strange woman’s kitchen wasn’t on my usual to-do list, but it was looking more and more likely with each passing puff. “What could I possibly be grateful for?”
“That we found you first. Trust me on this. Now, before you get all huffy, yeah, we hedged our bets a bit, but it was to make sure that we weren’t barking up the wrong tree. You see, Icons depend on the power of faith, specifically faith in one’s self. The more you believe, the more powerful you become.”
Gary nodded, still perched by the counter above the soggy remains of a playing card. Phil glared at him. “I needed those for poker night,” she muttered between puffs. “So anyway, now that we know, we need to help you find that inner strength, and believe me, we have a lot of work to do.”
“I have a lot of work to do, too . . . school work.”
“I’d take a sick day tomorrow,” Gary suggested.
“No! You can’t just kidnap me, tell me I’m some shiny one—”
“That’s Shining One,” Phil corrected. “Shiny one sounds like a knockoff brand of window cleaner.” She took an extra-long drag from her cigarette. “Did Gary tell you why we needed to find you?”
“I’m not some vampire slayer! I don’t even know how to process any of this. You need to let me go. My dad and uncle are probably—”
Phil flicked her butt and sauntered over. I tried not to gag at the overwhelming ashtray smell that seemed to hang off her. She put a hand on my shoulder, her bright pink nails clashing terribly against my red locks. Despite her artificial exterior, her gaze felt strangely reassuring. Considering what Gary had told me, I could only hope she wasn’t hexing me.
“You were never a prisoner,” Phil said softly. “Gary, let’s get this poor girl home and switch out the decoy. Now, Jessie, I understand you might need a little time to process everything. You’re probably thinking this is some dream you can just open your eyes and walk away from but, believe me, it won’t work. Once you know, you can’t un-know. However, if you do feel like you have to go to school tomorrow, I understand. But I must insist you meet us right after. Your decoy can take your place at the shop, I promise.”
“What decoy?”
“The magical kind. We can explain more after you’ve settled a bit. There’s still time—not much, but some.”
“But, um, what about this ubervamp?”
“The Freewill? He’s nowhere nearby, and we can hide you for a while,” Gary said, hopping to his feet. “Weird as it may seem, our sources tell us he doesn’t seem to be making any moves yet.”
Phil spat a wad of phlegm into the sink. “Which means he’s both cautious and cagey—traits that will bite us in the ass if we keep fucking about for too long.”
“I get it. Can I please go home now?” I looked down at my hair, my bright, obnoxious hair. “Oh God, I still look like this. Screw the ubervamp, I have to face my dad!”
Phil, for her part, looked modestly amused. She snapped her fingers, fairy godmother style, and a yellowish haze wafted around me. My hair shimmered briefly then I felt the heat rise from my skull all over again. Phil pursed her lips. “Damn it.”
“A simple glamour isn’t going to work,” Gary said, a trace of snotty sarcasm drifting into his voice. “Don’t forget those legends about Icons interfering
with our powers.”
“Stow it, Gare-bear,” Phil replied. “Unlike some people, I always have plans B-through-G at the ready. Now be a dear and grab the bag with the zombies on it out of my second closet.”
“Zombies?” My concern proved rather silly when Gary returned with a rather cute bag with little green people chasing hearts all over it. Sadly, it still felt like I had a hair dryer blasting on my head. If something so minor set me off, how the heck could I possibly get through calculus without lighting up like a roman candle?
Phil rummaged through the tote and pulled out a plastic bag full of dark hair.
“A wig?” I asked.
Phil waved her hands rather dismissively. “I dressed as Pocahontas for Halloween last year. People gave me shit because I wasn’t being culturally sensitive. Idiots. If they had any clue about the real history of this country, they’d know which side the Magi fought on in the French and Indian War. Anyway, let’s try it out.”
She pulled out the long, tangled wig, or it was tangled until Phil snapped her fingers again, straightening it all out. The knots smoothed away and the color shifted to my natural shade, or close enough. Better still, all traces of cigarette stink vanished as well.
Gary helped me tuck the red underneath and pin the mesh on. One more finger snap and I felt a tingling on my head, but different than before. I looked over to the window and saw myself, the old me, staring back—hair, eyebrows, all of it. “Magic is real, and it does makeovers?”
Phil let out a laugh. “Wouldn’t be much use if it didn’t. The pins are the focus of the glamour. I fortified them with blood magic, so they should hold up. As long as you keep those in you’ll look like you. Just try to stay calm. Oh, and I wouldn’t sleep in them. There’s no telling how all those magics will interact long term.” Phil walked around me and nodded a few times. “Not bad, if I do say so myself.”
“You used blood magic on hairpins?” Gary asked.
“Don’t judge me.”
“Magic is real,” I whispered again, still staring at my reflection.
“It’s probably time for us to get her home, Aunt Phil.”
Second String Savior Page 7