by CC Solomon
“Why?”
“Clearly, we need to help them. The woman is stuck in some, I don’t know, quicksand-like dirt or something.”
“What if it’s a trap? I mean, that guy looks like he’d swat us like flies. I’m not up for a fight. We have to focus on saving our friends.”
I looked to the man. He did look imposing, with a wide and muscular frame. Still, something was telling me to help. “What if it’s not a trap? And we’re looking for people to help us get our friends. Maybe they’ll help us if we help them, so stop the car!”
“Damn it, this is how we got caught last time.” Charles came to an immediate stop in front of an opening to a shopping plaza, and I jumped out. “Don’t be stupid, Sis! This is bullshit!”
Out of habit, I looked both ways before crossing the vacant street. I didn’t bother wasting time asking the man what happened. The situation looked pretty clear.
I raised both hands and focused on the ground around the now thighs of the female. She was getting swallowed up quickly, and I was sure she wasn’t able to breathe. If this was a trap, it was a dangerous one.
The man, who looked pretty strong, was no match for this magical ground. Yet, it was dirt all the same. Like the plants, it was still from nature. However, sinking ground was difficult. Loosening it up didn’t help prevent a person from going farther in. Hardening it only made them stuck. All I knew was that the longer the woman was underground, the lower her chances were for survival, as she was not getting any oxygen.
I had to refocus my energy. I needed to try something different. Something I’d never done before, but time was of the essence. Phillip’s voice rang in my head, telling me to assume I had no limits unless I found them.
“What’s your friend’s name?” I shouted, walking towards the action. The man had his back to me, away from the road.
He tilted his head back at me, face strained, and then looked back to his friend. “Can you help?” He asked gruffly.
“She’s trying!” Charles yelled, running up to the scene and taking hold of the friend’s legs in a fruitless effort to help.
“If I have her name, that’ll give me something to focus on to pull her out. I can’t move this dirt.”
“Lisa,” the man replied.
I focused on Lisa’s body moving upwards. The woman’s body only lifted a little. I needed a better image. “Describe what Lisa looks like,” I told the man.
“What? Why?”
“Help me, help her!”
He growled. “Uh, she’s tiny, barely over 5 feet, Asian, Chinese background. Looks like she’s in her twenties. She has long black hair, well, with some rainbow colors in it too. She’s pretty. Oh, she’s Fae,” he described with what I was noticing was an accent. Australian?
The image of a pretty Asian actress I’d seen on TV years ago entered my mind. I blurred the face a bit to avoid focusing on that actual celebrity and added wings to my faceless Asian female. I’d never met a fairy, but I figured they had wings.
I threw my arms up, hands skyward, and focused on the woman soaring up through the ground.
In my mind’s eye, Lisa was lifting through layers of dirt. I could see her rising horizontally backwards. The ground in front of us rumbled, and the dirt moved. Seconds later, a woman burst through; her limp body hovering above the ground. I laid her down on the road, away from the supernatural dirt, with my magic. Charles raced over to her and began CPR. The woman, covered head to toe in dirt, soon started couching and hacking up dirt.
The man scrambled to his feet and took off a backpack that I hadn’t noticed before. He brought out a bottle of water and gave it to Lisa.
I turned back to the sinking ground area and encircled it with a ward spell. No one would be able to touch this area and get sucked in again, as long as my ward stood. I turned back to the group, satisfied.
Seeing that his friend would survive, the man turned to me and gave me a curt nod.
That was it?
“What are you, a witch?” he asked gruffly.
Why did he sound mad at me? I looked over to him, finally taking the time to notice him. Not that focusing on such things at this time was appropriate, but he was handsome. He had messy, straight black hair, cut short on the sides and a little longer on the top, and a trimmed beard framing full lips. He was white and tanned, possibly mixed with something else in his lineage, Asian as well? He was also tall, which seemed to make his muscular frame even more imposing. That, coupled with hostile, hazel eyes, currently transfixed on me, made him very scary. I began to wonder if maybe this really was still a trap.
I nodded cautiously. “We both are. Except he’s a tech mage. I’m Amina Langston, my brother over there is Charles.”
“Ugh, I need a shower,” I heard Lisa say in a hoarse voice.
The guy, who I now pegged as being in his late twenties, maybe early thirties, tilted his head towards her. “That’s Lisa Xu. I’m Erik Bennet.”
Charles looked over at me as if to say, What now?
“So, what brought you guys out here?” I asked.
“Trying to find a place to settle,” Erik replied. “Where we were before wasn’t working out. You?”
“Same thing. We left a really bad situation and were headed to Hagerstown. It’s a government town. Hoping they can help us get some friends we left behind. Do y’all have a destination?”
“Silver Spring,” Lisa said through a cough.
I raised an eyebrow and looked over to Charles, who frowned at me.
“Seriously?” I asked.
Erik nodded but didn’t say anymore.
“Do you know anyone named Phillip?” Charles asked, looking at me.
Lisa squinted her eyes. “No, why?”
Charles shook his head quickly. “Amina thinks we should go to Silver Spring, too. I talked her into Hagerstown.”
Lisa looked to me with wide eyes. “Really? How weird is that? Do you have images of the town too? And an older black lady named Annie Mae?”
I raised both eyebrows now, slightly relieved. If Phillip was popping up in various women’s dreams, I’d be done. “No. Someone else.”
“Maybe somebody also from the town. Maybe they have a bunch of people there who can dream hop. That’s amazing. We should all go together,” Lisa suggested, sounding more recovered.
“No,” Erik cut in.
We all looked over to Erik, who was putting his book bag back on. The muscles on his arms strained as he put his arms through the straps of the too-small bag.
“Why not?” Lisa asked, still sitting with Charles on the ground beside her. I could see through her dirt-stained face, striking green eyes that looked mesmerizing against her Asian features. I looked away, not wanting to stare.
“No offense, but we don’t know you,” he answered, a gruff tone to his husky voice.
“Well, you don’t know the people in Silver Spring either. But you know that we stopped our car and saved your friend’s life, and we didn’t ask you for anything,” I responded, hands on my hips.
“Yet.” He folded his arms.
I glared at him for a beat then shrugged my shoulders. “Okay, cool. Take care. Come on, Charles.” I turned and headed to the car. If they didn’t want to help us, I didn’t need them.
“Just like that, Erik?” Lisa began. “This world is full of assholes, and you’re just going to let good people go? The more, the merrier, I say. You don’t have to be a jerk. I thought you
were—”
“Fine,” Erik barked. “Ana—”
“Amina,” I said and kept walking.
“Sorry, Amina. Witches didn’t do us any favors where we came from.”
“They were into sacrificial magic. Bad stuff,” Lisa explained.
I turned back to them. “We don’t do that.”
“You can control people. That’s not a good thing,” Erik stated.
I frowned. “What are you talking about?”
“You pulled her body from the ground. That was control.
”
“That’s kind of scary,” Lisa said, touching her chest.
“I didn’t think about it. I’ve never controlled a person before. I was just trying to get you out. I usually have power over natural things, but I couldn’t work the dirt fast enough. I didn’t mean to scare anyone. Silly me, I don’t know what I was thinking, trying to save your life.” I put my hands up in mock surrender.
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” Lisa added, standing up.
Charles jumped up and helped her get to her feet. He was being super attentive to her. He had a crush. Must be nice to be so cute you attract the attention of a guy even while covered head to toe in dirt.
I turned to Erik. “Look, you have a right to be concerned, but I’m not here to haphazardly hurt people. We were living in a small community, getting by. Then we were attacked by a group of non-gifted humans. They rounded up people like us and held us captive. They found a way to make themselves stronger by taking our blood. We have to go back and save the others we left behind. But we can’t do it alone. We were hoping to find a town that would help us. I was thinking Silver Spring, but Hagerstown is closer. We can use all the help we can get.”
Erik studied me without speaking. I suspect he was purposely trying to make me feel uncomfortable. Maybe he was a cop in the Pre-world. I shifted on my feet. “And whatever you guys were running from, we might be able to help with that too,” I added for good measure.
He cocked an eyebrow. “We weren’t running from anything.”
I shrugged. “Sure, a guy, who I think has some gifts, and a fairy walking around wooded areas in Pittsburg is normal.”
“Some of us don’t have tech mages who can start a car.”
“Fair enough, but it’s clear you guys are moving on from something. And don’t act like you don’t trust us. If you were that distrustful, you wouldn’t have told me Lisa was a fairy. You knew I was good from the start.” I gave him a wide grin.
He didn’t respond, but something in his eyes softened just a tinge.
I continued. “I think we can benefit each other. And we all have to admit that something big is going on. It’s more than a coincidence that we both want to go to Silver Spring. I don’t discard coincidences anymore.”
“Guys, maybe we want to hit the road,” Charles stated, looking down at the new watch he swiped from a jewelry store. I let go of the feeling of guilt from stealing a long time ago. No one was going to arrest us. “We get to Hagerstown, if they won’t let us in, then we find some nearby shelter and head to Silver Spring the next morning.”
Lisa nodded vigorously. “Come on, Erik, let’s just go with them. If they wanted to do something foul, they’d have done it by now. Plus, I’m no weakling. I’ve got power too. Which reminds me,” Lisa began. She closed her eyes and clapped her hands together. A swirl of blue wind, the color of the Fae magic, blew around her like a mini-tornado, and she became a blur behind tinted whirls of smoke. The smoke was odorless and did not affect the air quality. It was actually quite beautiful.
Seconds later, it dissipated, and there Lisa stood, clean, wearing a pair of jeans and a plaid button-down shirt. Her hair, I could now see, was black with highlights of blue, red, orange, and green. Her makeup was fully done, fake lashes, and all. I didn’t need to know how she had time to look glammed up. Magic.
“Can I get a makeover later from you?” I smirked.
She winked and nodded. “I got you, girl. That settles it, let’s pilgrimage together! Fun times!”
We all headed back to the SUV. Our new friends threw their book bags on top of the stuff in our already-crowded trunk, and we maneuvered into the car. Charles drove, and Erik, due to his long legs, sat in the passenger seat. I sat in the back with Lisa.
Lisa looked at us all. “This feels right. I think we’re going to get along and make a difference in this world,” she stated, clasping her hands together.
As corny as she seemed, I think I already liked her. Charles looked through the rear-view mirror at Lisa and smiled.
I bumped my elbow to hers and grinned when she returned it.
Erik snorted.
They were strangers, but something in me, like Lisa, still felt they’d be good for us. In this world, that’s what we needed.
Chapter 9
“So, this is fun, road tripping it with our new friends,” Lisa said in a sing-song voice as my brother drove carefully along the highway, maneuvering around obstacles on the road like he had in his old video games. All those times, I used to call him an idiot drone for playing games started to make me sound like the silly one now.
“How’d you get stuck in that magic dirt, anyway?” Charles asked.
Lisa let out a long dramatic sigh. “So, check this. We were walking down the road, and this stupid raccoon thing pops out of the dirt and grabs the bag of food I had in my hand. You guys know how hard food is to come by, so I went after it. And this stupid animal tries to disappear in the dirt. So I grabbed it, and then I got sucked into the dirt with the now-deceased raccoon thing and my now gone food,” she explained.
“You…didn’t want to let the food go?” I asked eyes squinted.
“Uh, yeah, but by then it was too late. That quick dirt was fast working. Nothing like how quick sand works in the movies. It was like a vacuum. If Erik hadn’t gotten to me in time, I’d be gone.” She shivered.
“Humph, I told you not to chase it,” Erik grumbled from the front passenger seat.
That was his response? His friend almost died, and he just wanted to chastise her. Was he really a nice guy? “How’d you both meet?” I asked.
Lisa gave another dramatic sigh. “Okay, so as you know, I’m a fairy, and I’ve been trying to find other fairies since this whole foolishness started. Before all this, I was living a sweet life as a makeup artist and stylist in New York, but then this bullshit happened. And fairies or Fae, whatever you want to call them, are so hard to find. The only reason I know what I am is because I met another fairy, but she disappeared before I could even go to the fairy world.”
“I’m sorry,” Charles cut in from the driver’s seat. “Back up, did you say fairy world? I haven’t met any fairies yet, so I wasn’t even sure you guys were a real thing.”
Lisa nodded quickly. “Oh, we’re real. Rare, but real. We just have our own separate dimension. Apparently, we always did. Anyway, before she left, she gave me a pretty good recap of what I needed to know about being a fairy to at least survive. Like, who knew all fairies don’t have wings? Apparently, some of us don’t need them to fly. So anyway—”
“Different dimension? How’s that possible?” I questioned.
“Did you think that all of this came out of nowhere?” Erik asked, turning slightly to me.
“Uh, yeah,” I replied, shrugging.
Erik shook his head and sat back. “We were always what we are now. When whatever event happened that caused this, all it did was lift a veil. That’s how your brother and you are witches. I had family who were werejackals…” His voice trailed off.
Ah-ha, that’s what he was.
“But our parents weren’t magic. They died of the Sickness,” Charles said.
“Maybe your parents had witch genes that may just skip generations, like some diseases,” Erik guessed.
“Like sickle cell,” I stated. “I guess I could understand that.”
“Remember, Mina, you and I used to say Grandma Bea was a witch,” Charles stated.
“That’s because she was mean,” I laughed. “She always knew when we were up to no- good. She’d pop up out of nowhere when we were about to do something we had no business doing. We probably would have set her house on fire if she hadn’t, though. Well, Charles would have.”
“You’re right,” he agreed in a low voice.
“Like Erik, I think there was always magic and the supernatural in the world before The Event,” Lisa said, making quotation marks around the words “the event.” “I think some of us magical beings were strong enough to even
use magic in the Pre-world. Definitely some witches. But for fairies, our magic only worked in the fairy world. We never lived among humans. We just visited. But there were some of us who were born in this world and couldn’t ever get to the fairy world. Now, in this new world order, we can go between our dimensions. I just don’t know how and I haven’t been able to find another fairy to help me yet. I wouldn’t be surprised if there were other kinds of dimensions too, and not just a fairy one.”
“This is so confusing,” Charles mumbled.
“Right? So, anyway, there I was minding my business, trying to find some valuables for trade to use in my community, which, side note, I didn’t like that place that much. It was so depressing. Anyway, I was looking for things in this abandoned apartment complex, and I got kidnapped by some thugs who brought me back to his camp.” She pointed an index finger towards Erik. “They said they wanted to bring females in because they were low on women. But then, when I tried to use my fairy magic on them to rightfully defend myself, they got different ideas.” She stabbed Erik in the back. “Tell ‘em. Tell ‘em what your people tried to do to me.”
Erik didn’t speak.
“Don’t leave me in suspense. Someone tell me,” I cried.
“Our pack didn’t treat her well,” Erik answered.
Lisa made a disgruntled noise. “Didn’t treat me well. They tried to tie me on a log and roast me like a pig, to be exact,” Lisa stated, crossing her arms.
“This world is some shit,” Charles whispered.
“Look, remember, most weres are carnivorous. And when we are in animal form…well, things can be cannibalistic if we are out of control,” Erik explained. “I’m not like that. Before all this, I was a bodyguard in New York. I use to be military back in New Zealand before I moved here for work. I help people, not hurt them. Anyway, our pack was changing. We had a new leader who was cracked. He believed if we ate a fairy we’d become more powerful.”
“Like those humans that imprisoned you both, but instead of blood, their dumb pack believed the power was in the flesh,” Lisa added.