by Elle Casey
He smiled as his cheeks turned pink.
I nudged him with my elbow. "Thanks. I appreciate the backup." I was picturing the small dragon when I said that. Not that I didn't trust the wyvern or anything, but she had her own agenda, and I wasn't sure it would always be on the same track as mine, especially once we got into the weird place known as the Gray—the way darker void than the lighter one I'd gotten stuck in recently—where trolls liked to hang out and snack on girls and little pixies.
As we made our way down the hall and then out into the meadow, my nerves started to get the better of me. It felt like the temperature had dropped ten degrees. I started to hum the song from the Wizard of Oz under my breath. I wished we were off to see the wizard. I was pretty sure that that guy was a lot nicer than the creatures we were about to meet up with.
We reached the edge of the trees where the forest started in earnest and I heard a buzzing, and then suddenly there was a tiny pixie coming at us. I waited for him to splat into my chest or my face, but he flew right past me and joined his parents off to my right. I stopped and stared at him in fascination. He was wearing an outfit that made him look like a teenie weenie Boy Scout. He even had a neck scarf and a couple of little badges on his chest. He saluted his father. "Agent Willy reporting for duty."
Tim stiffened his body with his arms at his sides and then lifted his hand in a strong salute. "Agent Willy, it's good to see you. Report on your progress."
Willy grinned from ear to ear. "I did it, Daddy. I told him. Just like you said."
Tim held up his hand for a high-five. "Good job, Willy. Daddy's proud."
Willy tried like heck to execute that high-five too, but he missed his dad's hand entirely. He didn't seem to notice, though; he was too busy turning to look at his mom next, still grinning like a fool. "I did it, Mama. Just like you told me."
She held her arms out and he came in for a quick hug. "Good job, little one. You make Mama proud."
He withdrew from his mother's embrace and turned around, flying just in front of his parents in superhero position.
I couldn't stop smiling. "Good job, Baby Bee."
He didn't even flinch.
"Hey, what's up, little dude? How about a high one?" I held up a finger for him to fly over and tap.
He acted like I didn't say anything.
"Hey, little pixie person. Willy Bee. What's up? You got some pollyballs stuck in your ears or something?" I laughed at my awesome pixie joke, but I was alone in appreciating my humor. The forest got really quiet.
Tim came over and sat on my shoulder as we started walking again. His voice dropped really low. "Yeah, sooo, you might want to just relax on the whole high-one stuff and wait for him to come to you."
"Why? What's going on?" I was completely in the dark.
"He's still mad at you."
"Mad at me? 'Still'…as in…he's been mad at me for a while?" I stopped walking. "What on earth would he be mad at me for?"
"Well, it seems as though you broke a promise to the little guy, and he's not very happy about it." I could hear censure in Tim's voice.
"A promise? What promise?" I was thinking that the baby pixie had maybe gotten into some spoiled honey or something, because somebody in that meadow was drunk, and it sure wasn't me.
"Apparently, the last time he saw you, you told him you would come back and play with him, and then…well…you didn't."
I searched my brain for that memory and something vague did pop up. "I might've said something like that. I think maybe he wanted to play with me, but I was in the middle of doing something crazy, so I just told him we'd do it later."
"Yeah, well, you didn't really follow through on that promise, did you?"
The injustice caused my voice to go higher. "There was no way I could have! I got stuck in the white void. Geez. It's not like I don't have anything better to do than play hide the pollyballs up somebody's ass with a pixie baby."
"You might want to lower your voice. You're not helping your situation."
I didn't know what Tim was worried about. That baby pixie of his wasn't paying me any attention; he was totally ghosting me. "Damn," I said more softly, "that little guy sure can hold a grudge."
"You have no idea. And it is a lot of work to get back into his good graces, let me tell you. He can get pretty obsessive sometimes. I mean, it's good because it means he can channel, but sometimes it's exhausting. The key is redirecting that obsession into other channels…more fruitful endeavors." He chuckled with an almost evil parental glee.
The way Tim said it flicked a switch on in my head. "Don't tell me, let me guess…he was all pissed off at the elemental, so you channelled that anger into this so-called training."
"We might have taken advantage of the situation a little bit, but I'm not going to apologize for finally getting an angle on this kid. It's been good for him."
I looked over at Abby and she had clearly overheard our conversation. She was giving us a thumbs-up behind her other hand so Willy wouldn't see it.
I rolled my eyes. "Fine. I guess I don't have to worry about having pollyballs stored in my nose anymore, at least."
"Probably not."
Tim's answer should've made me ridiculously happy, but it didn't. It wasn't that I wanted the little guy shoving shit up my nose when I was asleep, but he only did that to people he really cared about. And although he was a pain in the butt most of the time, he was a nice little guy and he was pretty hilarious. I realized I was actually going to miss his friendship and that the value of such a thing was not at all related to the size of the fae sharing it with me.
I raised my voice so Willy could hear me, but acted like I was speaking to Tim. "Well, I hope Baby Bee decides to forgive me one day, because I sure am sorry for hurting his feelings, and you know…we could play spider nakies and do all kinda cool stuff if he ever decided to talk to me again."
Willy's voice came loud and clear from a few feet away. "Guess what, Mama… I don't like to play spider nakies anymore because I'm not a baby. I'm a ayygent now. I'm a ayygent of the fae."
"Is that so?" she asked. "Because, you know, playing spider nakies is pretty fun. You may want to do that a little while longer, while you're still small, because once you're big you can't do it anymore."
"I'm not small. I'm big." He flew out ahead of everybody with his chest puffed out.
I had to admit, his flight pattern was a lot steadier than the last time I'd paid any attention to it. Maybe all that training had done him some good.
Abby flew over and stayed next to my ear. "He'll come around. You just need to give him some time."
"I will. Don't worry; I'll work the old Jayne Sparks charm on him, and he'll be my best friend again by tomorrow."
"Orrr, you could not rely on unicorns and leprechauns, and instead, just wait for him to come around in his own time," Abby said before flying away.
I was too stunned to respond before she was out of range. She'd totally just burned me, roasting me like a Thanksgiving turkey. I obviously had not given that lady pixie enough credit. She made me smile with her sass. For the first time, I was seeing what had made Tim fall in love with her over seventy years ago. She had some serious stealth-sass going for her, and Lord knows how much Tim likes sass.
After passing through the thickest area of trees, I recognized the figure of Goose waiting for us in a small clearing. He was in the same spot where I'd met him the first time, where we had traded a laughing, dancing, heavily pixilated Chase for the promise of a potential cure. I raised my hand in greeting. He gestured the same back to me. The wyvern and Mike were already there, standing off to the side. Once the pixies, Scrum, and I arrived, we stood around with Goose at the head of our group, facing us.
"I guess you know why we're here," I said.
He nodded once, almost as if he were bowing to me. "I understand you wish to contact two souls in the Gray."
"They're not just souls, they're full-on fae. They were in the Overworld battling demons, and
they ended up in the Gray when the elements cleaned the place out, but they're not supposed to be there. It was an accident." One I will regret for the rest of my life. I should have been more careful when I called to my elements and mixed them with live dragon fire.
"They must have belonged there if that is where they went," he said.
"The jury is still out on that," I said feeling more than a little frustrated over his answer. "The only way we're going to figure things out for sure is by getting in there to talk to them. So, can you take me in or not?"
He glanced at the fae with me. "I can take you and you alone. More than your soul would be too much for me to manage with the Gray being how it is these days."
I do not need an escort, said the wyvern in my head. I didn't get any indication that the other fae had heard her, but I wasn't going to worry myself over her. She could do whatever she wanted as far as I was concerned. I gave her a brief nod and then looked over my shoulder at Scrum. "I guess you're going to have to wait out here for me."
He huffed out a frustrated sigh. "Darn it, this keeps happening. How am I ever going to protect you if I can't be where you are?"
I patted his shoulder. "Pretty much every time I've been in the Gray, I've been rescued by someone standing just outside of it. So just wait for me out here, and if you see my arm sticking out of some hole in the veil between here and there, grab it and yank for all you're worth."
Scrum pulled me into a hug, surprising me with the force of it. "Be careful. Don't talk to any trolls in there. And get out as soon as you can."
"I will." I separated myself from him and walked over to Goose. There was no more time to waste on sentiment or fear. Tony and Spike were counting on me, whether they knew it or not. "Let's do this," I said, looking up at him.
He held out his hand, and I took it. His fingers were long and thin, cool to the touch. They might have even been a little clammy. "Say goodbye to your friends," he said…and then suddenly he wasn't Goose anymore.
As his bony fingers clamped down hard on mine, I realized too late that I wasn't standing in front of the fae who had helped me heal my friend Chase; I was standing in front of the monster who I hated more than anyone on Earth…the one who had beaten my mother to death once in another life, the one who had tried to melt my brain when I wouldn't tell him how to sneak into the Light Fae compound, the one who had been working with Ben and Malena to defeat the Light Fae and take over the world. I was holding Leck's hand, and he was dragging me kicking and screaming into the Gray.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
I STRUGGLED TO get free, but it did no good. Leck's grip was like iron, and he was definitely on a mission. My puny little muscles were useless, or so it seemed. I called desperately to my elements, but they didn't answer. I was in the Gray where they couldn't reach me. I wasn't even sure they could sense that I was calling to them.
"Just come along, elemental," he growled. "It will be easier on both of us."
I threw out my foot to kick him, catching him somewhere in the leg. "I'm not interested in making your life easy, ass lick."
He paused the dragging to slap me hard across the face, causing my head to whip around. As I fell partway to the ground, I could sense creatures seething all around us, there near my feet and to the left and right of us. Tendrils of unhappiness trailed across my arms and legs. I was almost tempted to cuddle up next to Leck just to get away from them, but I resisted, standing straight again while trying to uncurl his fingers from my flesh. When that didn't work, I tried to jerk my arm free, but it accomplished nothing. He dragged me along like I was an errant toddler.
"Where the hell are you taking me?"
"I have some friends who want to meet you," he said.
I stuck my heels into the ground as deeply as I could and leaned way back, thinking I could at least slow him down. I had no idea who these so-called friends were, but I knew I didn't want to meet them. Any friend of Leck's was an enemy of mine.
He yanked on me, and my body went flying toward him. I fell into his shoulder, and he punched me in the chest, pushing me off him roughly.
My instincts were telling me to continue to struggle against my captor, to do whatever it took to escape, but with every shove and every slap he gave me, I lost some of my strength. He was way more physically powerful than I ever would be, and he knew it. Realizing that the smarter move would be to save my physical power for a moment when I might actually be able to escape, I stopped struggling and walked along as slowly as I could; but that didn't mean my mouth was going to take a break. "Tony!" I yelled, "Spike?! Help me! Tony! Spike!"
Leck smashed me across the face again, and this time I tasted blood. It was salty with a hint of iron. He'd managed to split both of my lips with one blow.
"Silence! Or you will never make it out of here alive."
"I'm pretty sure that's your plan anyway, so I'm not going down quietly." I raise my voice and screamed as loud as I could, blood trickling down my chin. "Tony! Spike!"
Leck stopped and reached around, grabbing me by the collar and jerking my upper body back until I was practically folded in half. I could smell his nasty stank breath in my face as he leaned over and hissed at me. "Shut up, I told you. You say another word, and I'll slit your throat and it will all be over."
I scrabbled for the weapon at my leg, finally making contact with the dragon fang. And even though I knew it wouldn't have the power it normally had, I pulled it out of its hilt and whacked him upside the head with it anyway. "Go fuck yourself, Leck, you piece of shit!"
The tooth that looked like a stick made a solid thunking sound against his skull, but it didn't slow him down one iota. He jerked on my collar hard and dropped me onto the ground on my back. I screamed with the pain that came from falling three feet to solid, stone-covered earth. My breath wheezed out of me as he grabbed me by the back of my tunic and started dragging me. That stupid Gray had some really hard, rough ground, so it wasn't more than a few feet before the rocks and what I assumed were sticks—but could have easily been bones from leftover troll meals—started cutting through my pants and into my skin. Leck didn't hesitate, no matter how loud I screamed in pain. He dragged me along, not even having the decency to breathe hard with the effort.
The sticks and stones digging into my skin were bad enough, but then things got interesting. At first I thought it was just a branch scratching at my legs, but then I quickly realized there was something grabbing at me, and it had nails. The creature's claws were dragging along my calves, piercing the skin, causing me to scream even more in both agony and fear. I kicked out hard and made contact with something that screeched in surprise and pain, but it came at me again, this time with two hands.
"You're always way more trouble than you're worth." Leck yanked on me, temporarily freeing me from the beast pursuing us that I could not see.
I felt my chance for escape when my shirt started to slide up and bunch around my shoulders. I waited three more seconds, barely tolerating the deep abrasions I was suffering on my back before I made my move.
A moment after I felt myself being dragged over a dip in the ground, I pulled my arms down and dug my heels into that groove in the earth's surface. I pulled with my legs in the opposite direction Leck was going as I threw my arms overhead and did my best to make my shoulders as narrow as possible. My shirt was too big, and it easily slid up and over my head and off my body completely. Apparently, all that traipsing around in those other realms and in the white void had caused me to lose a few pounds.
Suddenly, my tunic was gone and the dragging stopped. I was left in the dirt wearing only my jeans and a sports bra. "Hells yeah, baby!" I wasted no time in jumping to my feet and running in the direction of the creatures that had been scratching at my legs. As far as I was concerned, anything was better than having Leck in my life. "See ya later, ass face!"
I bumped into only God knew what—masses of cold bodies belonging to creatures I didn't even want to think about—but I was moving too fast for them
or Leck to get me. I screamed as I went. "Tony! Spike! Where are you?!"
Leck was yelling behind me, but his voice grew distant quickly. I was running for my life, and my legs had gotten the signal that they were supposed to move as fast as they possibly could. They might've been short, but they sure could pump out the miles when properly motivated. I ran until my lungs felt like they were going to burst, they were burning so bad. It didn't hurt that every time I thought about slowing down, those Gray creatures started touching me again.
There was no way for me to know how long I kept going, but at some point panic started to close in when I realized I wasn't going to be able to keep that pace up forever. Leck knew the Gray way better than I did, and he'd find me eventually. Not to mention the fact that numerous trolls and other uglies lived in this space and would only be too happy to separate my flesh from my bones for me.
"Tony! Spike!" I yelled for the hundredth time, praying they would answer. The only thing that came to my ears were the whispers of unhappy creatures, of souls lost in the Gray who thought they had nowhere else to go.
When I could no longer force my legs to move at a run, I slowed to a jog with my hands held out in front of me. Just in case one of the nasties tried to get up close and personal, I was ready to do some serious slapping. I tried to focus on the energy around me, hoping I could find Tony's or Spike's signature in the mix, but it felt like an impossible task. The only things I could sense were unhappiness and disinterest, and sometimes also the dark hunger of those who craved life but could not have it.
When my legs started to feel like they were made of wet noodles, I slowly came to a stop, my breaths heaving in and out of me. I couldn't get enough oxygen into my system and I was close to going down. I used the last bit of energy I had to call out again. "Where are you?" I yelled weakly. "I need your help! Answer my call." I paused for breath, bending over and whispering to myself. "Nine-one-one…nine-one-one…it's an emergency…"