by Zoe Parker
“Yes, I think I can. Why?”
“Can we make the metal into pieces that can go in grenades or bombs?” His eyes light up at my suggestion. Jameson likes making new things and he’ll take any opportunity to do it.
“I don’t see why not, the Magiks goes in the metal that the collar was cast from. There’s no reason we can’t make it into smaller pieces. Give me twenty-four hours.” Then he’s off, heading towards the room in the basement that he’s designated as his secret lab. Not that it’s actually a secret, because the maid cleans it everyday.
“That’s actually a rather brilliant idea Iza. Why can’t you be like that all the time?” Phobe asks, his face never wavering from serious. I feel his humor but I don’t think it’s all joking.
“Dick.” He only smiles at the insult. “It’ll take at least two days for the Feyrie to get here.That gives us a little time to plan, rest and supply ourselves. Feel like going swimming?”
“You want to try and inhale half the pool while practicing your doggy paddle?” Phobe teases. Well, I think he’s teasing—he’s not wrong, so he might be completely serious. As quick as I am at learning things, swimming seems to be something I don’t have a knack for.
“Eh, why not? At least if they throw me into a river or something I can take longer to drown.”
“Sure, because you can do so much in that ten extra seconds,” he says, face serious once again. Maybe instead of me being a bad student, he’s a bad teacher? His jaw flexes when he hears my thoughts.
I can’t help but make it worse. “It's finally happened, something that you’re bad at. I mean, it had to happen eventually.” He starts to stand and I grab a towel and run downstairs to the heated pool, laughing.
The minute I walk into the enclosed pool house, the laughter fades. It’s small—incredibly so—and there’s a small crowd of people already, but I don’t let my disappointment stop me. Shucking my clothes down to my underwear—gotta save the humans a heart attack or two—I run towards the pool and leap.
Even underwater I can hear the exclamations about my partial nudity. Walking along the bottom of the pool, I head towards the shallow end. Normally I’d ignore them but people like to call the cops on me, and I’d rather not have to deal with that right now. Surfacing, I look towards the huddled group of humans and ask, “Shouldn’t you be worrying about more important things than my boobs? You know, like people-eating aliens?”
The myriad looks on their faces makes me smile. There are two women in the group of ten, and they’re the only ones who look bothered by it. At least, until I know they see Phobe. Both of their faces change into one of wonder and straight admiration. One of them even swallows. Yeah, he has that effect on me too lady. I turn around and laugh out loud as I watch him casually stroll towards me. He had the sense to put swimming trunks on but they’re not the brightly colored ones you normally see. These are black, form fitting and don’t leave all that much up to the imagination.
It’s good to know that my libido isn’t afraid of impending death.
“You going to tell him to put his shirt on ladies?” No response from them. Figures. Turning I use the wall to head towards the deeper end. Phobe wasn’t kidding, I’m not that great at swimming. As much as I like water, it doesn’t care much for me. I sink in it like a fat rock.
Phobe, ever the antagonist, takes one look at me and jumps. His arms snake around me when he hits the water and down I go to the bottom of the pool again. He turns me in his arms and smiles. With a heave, he sends me to the top of the water, and with one hand under my foot, effortlessly holds me there.
‘Can’t learn to swim hanging onto the wall, Iza,’ he says, releasing me. I start to sink once again. Fighting to remember the instructions he gave me, I doggie paddle for all I’m worth, and for the first time manage to not only stay on top, but also move around in drunken circles. The latter isn’t on purpose.
“Such a dick,” I mutter, working my arms and legs in some semblance of tandem. Humans make this look so easy; some of them even take to it immediately. Not me, I have to be the slow learner.
Phobe surfaces and lazily swims around me, occasionally commenting on how to make the experience easier. This time I’m not stoned out my mind and trying to determine the taste of water. Which I did—it tastes like water.
Eventually, I start doing better and feel more confident that I’ll survive that imagined river for a solid minute.
Done learning, for now, I slowly head towards the shallow in where I steal a floaty from the side of the pool. The group of humans are still there, lurking, but don’t protest. Fifteen minutes later, I realize that floats are evil things that attempt to drown you every single time you try to climb on it. I have yet to accomplish getting more than a single leg and arm on it at the same time. Dragging it towards the stairs that lead out of the pool, I try to step off the top and end up, once again, not on the floaty.
“Iza,” Phobe says in exasperation, and lifts me to sit me inside the contraption of doom. It weeble wobbles and I spread my legs to balance myself. When I feel secure enough, I relax and decide to see what these things are all about. Looking over the bend of my knee I see Phobe shaking his head, wearing that small smile that means I’ve done something to amuse him.
These are the moments in life you hold onto, no matter how long or short it may be.
Less than forty-eight hours later we’re on the road again. Our caravan of cars is like a long, deadly train stretching back as far as I can see. More people than I expected showed up. Feyrie that hadn’t even come to the Sidhe, are here. They know the time to fight is at hand and it’s all hands on deck. Our numbers are in the low thousands—very low, and while it seems like a lot now, compared to the tens of thousands of Schoth coming over… we’re a drop in the bucket. The one advantage we have is our brute force. Feyrie are mostly monstrous in comparison to Light Fey. Everything else is a disadvantage.
The majority of the Magiks wielders are mediocre compared to the trained, suped up mages that Light has given a shot of magikal heroin. We have a few strong ones but they’ll mostly be healing and defending, versus tossing fireballs at the Light Fey. And no matter how strong our more physical Feyrie are, the Schoth are fully trained, seasoned soldiers. They have fought things like us and won many times in the past. Alagard trained them as well as he could, but there’s only so much you can teach a Feyrie who’s weapon throughout life was a broom or a hoe. Then again, some of them surprised me.
There’s a good chance we’ll lose a lot of people, maybe even all of them—including me, but that’s the way war works. People die and unless we want to lose this home too, we have to accept that and still fight with everything we have. Even with the odds against us, I can’t give up or let them, either. I wasn’t lying when I told Phobe I wanted done with this mess, but I don’t believe in giving up and doing a shitty job, either. I’ll fight as hard as I can and push them to do the same. If nothing else, we can all go out with a bang and a shit ton of dead Schoth.
Watching the scenery outside pass with a solemness that’s not normal for me, I turn the plan around in my head. I’m not a genius when it comes to this stuff but even I know we have to head them off. We’re the only line of defense against the blonde bastards. The goal is to follow the southern coast-line before turning north, and avoid the mass of Schoth in the center of the country as long as possible. We’re going to meet up with the humans and then head the Schoth off before they get to the capital. Not that I care if they take the president, but the country will suffer even more if they lose the seat of power.
Phobe and I have Auryn and Licar with us this time around. They’re napping in the back seat, and in the bed of the truck—and every vehicle with us—is an array of weapons that, on a different kind of day, the police would arrest us for. Not that it’s an issue now. The police are protecting the people in the evacuation centers set up all over the country. Not all still remain; some of the Schoth platoons went through the green zones and wiped out
entire centers, full of thousands of people.
Seeing it on the news made me even more determined to finish this once and for all.
Jameson managed to make a few crates of the grenades. We haven’t got to test them yet but I’m pretty confident they’ll work. Jameson pisses me off at times but he’s good when it comes to making stuff. They’re not like the human ones, although they do have a bit of a boom to them, but they’ll be more effective against someone wielding Light Magiks. Hopefully. With my eyes on the road ahead—and sometimes on the cool looking military vehicles—we’re on our way to what will possibly be the end of Feyrie; but killing us won’t be that easy.
Then again, killing them won’t be either.
17
Seeing a chance to give Iza one more night of something good, I picked a campsite on the beach of the ocean. They call this place the Gulf of Mexico and even I have to admit the view is beautiful. The night sky is clear, and the stars that she loves so much, paints a glittering portrait on the water below it. If nothing else, it’ll give her a place to think about what’s ahead of her in relative peace.
The humans have been evacuated from the towns surrounding us, creating a hollowness to the town that’s normally bustling with tourists this time of year. It’s a fitting reflection of the morose mood she’s fallen into. Before we left she made legal preparations for her death, in case this world survives and she doesn’t. She made sure the remaining Feyrie, and the Schoth children she sequestered away in secret, will be cared for. There won’t be a world left for any of them if we don’t come out victorious in the next few days.
Standing on the edge of the sand, watching her sitting on the beach with her arms resting on her upturned knees makes me wish—something I rarely do—that there was some miracle I could pull off to stop this from happening. If only I was the creature from so long ago; then again I can’t say that I would truly wish to be him again, because that creature didn’t know her, didn't love her.
But he might have.
Her shoulders are slumped and her mind is on things that I don’t want to see, but still look at. Iza is so assured of her death that she’s already missing life. Thinking of things she could’ve done and mourning what she hasn’t. This is not acceptable. Walking to her, I sit down behind her and wrap her in my arms. With a sigh, she leans back against me and the thoughts I was eavesdropping on come out of her mouth.
“No matter what I tell myself, I don’t see a way for us to come out of this victorious, but I know we need to. It’s such a fucked up mess that I can’t see a way out of it, Phobe. We’re less than three-thousand strong and the majority of them have never fought anyone like what we’ll face tomorrow. They’re going up against a seasoned army that’s got a multitude of conquered worlds under their belt. Thousands of them, Phobe.” Fiddling with a string on the knee of my jeans she continues, “Not that I care so much about me, but these people… they’ve survived all the shit the Schoth threw at them and still they’re going to die at their hands.”
“It’s unlike you to be so negative.”
“Bah, it’s realism. I’m just sad about it. The only way we’d win is with you, and…” She leaves the rest of the thought unsaid but I know the words that would’ve followed. You’re not strong enough to beat him.
“Promise me that you won’t go after Light head on, Iza.” He’ll kill her without any effort at all. Flick her away like a bothersome fly. He’ll cheapen her sacrifice and I can’t have that, no matter what I have to do.
“Why hasn’t he killed me already? We know he can.” The question I’ve been waiting on.
“He isn’t after you… all of this has come about because I didn’t play his game. That’s why, like a child throwing a tantrum, he unraveled my physical form. He knew I’d go back to the beginning, but he still used it to torture you. Now that same asshole child is playing another, deadlier game—all because he’s a sore loser.”
“If he were to ‘die’ wouldn’t he reset like you did, in the same position?”
“Eventually, but his form is different than mine was. He’s tied to a powerful Light Fey, maybe the most powerful one. It’s his anchor but it’s also his prison. He has to have an anchor to survive as he is. Light’s natural form is limited, he can only interact with the physical realm if he has a body. It’s why he possesses them but even that has limits. The king’s body is strong enough to hold him—that’s rare, and still has an expiration date.” I rest my cheek against her hair. If I can destroy the body, there’s a moment where I could potentially destroy him for good—but it's a big if, and I decide not to mention it.
I continue with my explanation, “I don’t have the same handicap. But… as I am, I can’t match him equally, Iza. As it stands now, since I’ve fed so voraciously, he can’t kill me or even send me back to the NetherRealm. But he can knock me out of this plane, essentially making me useless for an undetermined time.” There’s no reason to give her a bunch of useless platitudes. Not that I have any intention of making things easy for Light to get to Iza, and admitting that there’s a chance I can’t delay it long bothers me on every level.
“Dad said you can’t bring me back a second time,” my gut clenches, “Can you make sure that no one eats me? The thought of being pooped out of someone disturbs me.” Even at a time like this, she shows that dark humor—except this time, it’s tinged with sadness.
“Really, Iza?” I ask into her hair, hiding my smile. The last thing I want to do is encourage a conversation about poop. I dare someone to try and eat her; I’d eat them, showing them the charm of one bite at a time—I’ve perfected it.
“What? It’s a genuine concern. I don’t want to go into the afterlife thinking I’ll be a turd.” The thoughts of doom and gloom dim in her mind as it moves onto other things. Namely, if she’s brave enough to swim in the ocean.
Feeling someone close by, I turn and spot Knox slowly making his way towards us over the sand. Frowning, I climb to my feet; he was left back at the Sidhe with the other children. How did he get here? My shadows reach for him but Iza sees him before I can ask and climbs to her feet to run to him.
“Knox, how the hell did you get here? Did you sneak into one of the cars?” Her rapid fire questions, although chiding, still hold the love she has for the shifter child. All thoughts of death are buried beneath her concern—and elation— at seeing Knox. If his presence has this effect on her, that’s temporarily a good thing—but he will have to be returned to the Sidhe before morning.
Knox wraps his arms around her neck as she kneels in the sand before him. His eyes meet mine over her shoulder and fill with golden light. Fuck!
“Iza!” I yell and start to run but even at my speed, I’m not fast enough. The collar clicking around her neck is loud in the sudden silence. Iza pushes back from him but it’s too late. As I watch, the Feyrie part of her dims and then snuffs out altogether as it’s smothered under the woven Light Magiks in the collar. Getting in between them, I shove Knox away and he stumbles and falls backwards onto the ground.
Light gives into the temptation to taunt her and smiles with Knox’s mouth. “That soft heart of yours, Shepherd, will always be your downfall.” His eyes turn to me. “Brother, does it please you to know that when your lover dies, it will be your fault?”
My first impulse is to grab the child and wrap him in the killing shadows. Swallow him down and hide him forever from Iza. I clamp down on it and instead shrug. The look on Knox’s face as the Magiks bleed out of his eyes is sour. He’s not happy I didn’t react to his jab.
Knox’s eyes fill with confusion and then he collapses.Threat temporarily gone, I turn to Iza, who’s looking at the child with a mix of anger and loss. Her fingers are pulling against the collar burning her throat from contact with Light Magiks.
“Is he still in there?” she asks, pulling on the collar even more. It glows with the spells woven in it and already the skin beneath it is raw and bleeding.
“Yes, but having him nearby isn’
t safe.”
“He can take anyone like that?” The desire to go to Knox is on her face but she doesn’t act on it. One betrayal has made Iza more cautious with the Feyrie, even the children.
“No, not anyone. But children are easy victims.” Light can push their consciousness down without much of a fight but in Knox’s case, he had to entice him to let him in. Knox has natural shields against intrusion, so for some fucked up reason the child agreed to allow Light to possess him.
“Gods, I’m so fucked.” I study her in concern. Her eyes are straight black, there’s no other colors in them now. That feature must come from the Feyrie side of her. Her teeth are still sharp, her skin still a pale bluish color, and her Medusa Strands are sluggish, but still exist. Iza has a lot of her father in her, a blessing in disguise. But the swirl of Dark Magiks and the presence of the Sidhe are no longer active in her. Both are being held down by the Magiks in the collar. Cutting her power down significantly.
“I can’t feel them anymore, not a single one of them. I can’t feel the Sidhe…” she says softly in disbelief. “How the fuck do we get this thing off?” Panic is edging her voice but she hasn’t given in yet and probably won’t.
Jameson calls out and runs towards us; with a cursory look at Knox he grimaces when he sees Iza. “I came to tell you that Knox was here and acting weird but I see he beat me here.”
“Way to state the fucking obvious, Jameson. How do I get this godsdamn collar off?!” she yells at him.
Jameson sighs, shifting around nervously. After staring at her for several seconds, he finally answers, “You can’t. No Feyrie wearing the collar can remove while alive. It’s attracted to that nature, designed for it. The only way to take it off is for you to die or somehow cut the Feyrie out of you.”