After the Fall

  I reached out and grabbed Garrett's arm. "Why didn't you say so before?! Take me there! Me and my two friends."

  He half bowed again. "As you wish. Send me out so I can meet you in the meadow."

  I stepped forward without any preamble, yelling, "Ass!" as I made contact with his chest. As soon as I saw him fly out, I fell back myself with arms outstretched and my eyes closed, yelling, "Send me to the meadow!"

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  I WAS LYING IN THE grass, my head in Spike's lap, and he was looking down at me with a smile on his face. "Success?"

  Before I could answer, Garrett appeared, walking towards us from a short distance away. "Are you ready?" he asked.

  I stood, and Tim flew down and landed on my shoulder, holding onto my hair. "Ready, Captain!" he said, probably saluting.

  "Ease up there, Sparky. Don't act so excited about going to hell, okay? It's just a little too creepy," I said, bending down to grab the sword from where it lay in the grass.

  "Strap the sword on, Jayne. You will need it," said Garrett, staring at it with a funny expression on his face, as if it made him uncomfortable.

  I put it on, disturbed to find that it fit so well and felt so natural there. Even though it was longer than my dragon fang, it didn't scrape the ground when I walked, and with the tie at my thigh, it didn't bang around like I had expected it to. Now I had a weapon on each leg, and when I realized a few seconds later that the new one wasn't making me sick like it had with Spike, I felt a tiny bit better about meeting up with any demons on our trip. Blackie might not pack much of a punch in that realm, but I was willing to bet this baby did.

  "Follow me," said Garrett, moving back in the direction he'd come from.

  "Where is he taking us?" whispered Spike, holding onto my hand as we walked through the dry grasses. Small sticks and leaves that had blown over from the forest crunched under our feet as we walked.

  I felt anxious and protected and vulnerable all at the same time. Spike's familiar stride next to me made my heart spasm. He was so beautiful, inside and out. My mind flashed back to the day I saw him for the first time in Miami, his face aglow with happiness over having earned enough money to buy pizza and soda for all his friends. He was such a good person, and now a good fae. I really had won the lottery having him in my life.

  I shook my head out of the romantic clouds it had wandered into and answered his question, focusing on putting one foot in front of the other. "I'm not sure exactly where he's taking us, other than to the Underworld."

  Garrett spoke to us without looking back. "We will enter through the void. The entrance is just up ahead."

  I tried not to be freaked out by how close it was to our compound door, but it was tough. This explained why I'd seen orcs in the area where I'd left Chase for the Dark Fae wrathe, Gus. The spot where I'd tied Chase to the tree wasn't far from here.

  Garrett stopped in front of what looked in the dim light like a black tree. But then it blinked out of existence and was just part of the meadow again.

  "What was that?" asked Spike, closing his hand tighter around mine. He didn't sound scared - just curious.

  "That is the entrance to the void," I said, not feeling nearly as brave as Spike sounded. "The Gray. It's like a curtain that's got a rip in it. You went through it before, or at least your soul did. That demon that possessed you went back and forth through it."

  "Freaky, man. The veil between the realms," he said in a reverent voice, taking a step towards it.

  "It's like being in a womb and being born," whispered Tim. "We're in the birth canal right now."

  "Gross, Tim!" I whisper-yelled. "Please! I do not need that visual right now, if you don't mind."

  "What? I'm just saying ..."

  I rolled my eyes, beginning to think that taking a baby pixie through the Overworld was going to seem like a picnic after this was over.

  Garrett went first, stepping into the blackness and disappearing from view once he was fully through. I walked up next, reaching into the veil and feeling a cool hand close over mine. It didn't have claws attached to it, so I didn't fight back, hoping beyond hope that it was my vampire guide helping me in. I stepped into the cold blackness, trying to ignore the pieces and bits of unhappy whispers that I began to hear as soon as I was fully through.

  "Whoa," said Tim from my shoulder, "this is not like being born and definitely not like coming out of the womb. More like falling into hell." He buried himself deeper into my hair.

  "Yeah. Exactly," I said in a quiet voice.

  I saw the veil move to the side a bit and caught flashes of the meadow beyond. Then Spike's arm and torso came through. "Peekaboo," he said, flashing me a grin before the rest of him was in. He was having way too much fun for my taste. It must have been his incubus nature making him feel stupidly invincible or something.

  "Come ... follow me," said Garrett. "We need to press on. We cannot stay here for long."

  "Why?" I asked, following as closely behind him as I could without actually being on his back.

  "It is not safe here. We can be seen by any number of creatures I would rather not meet up with."

  "Like, which ones?" I asked, my morbid curiosity winning out over the lure of blissful ignorance.

  "I will not say because often just considering them will bring their energy to us. Just keep your senses sharp, and do not engage with any of the spirits around us. And there are many," he finished with a worried tone. "The natives are restless, as they say."

  "As who says?" asked Tim.

  "Shhhh," I said, knowing that last time we were traveling through the Gray, Tim hadn't been able to help but get involved with some spirit who tried to talk him into doing something that I knew would have pissed me off. "Remember last time you ended up in my bra for misbehaving? I'll do it again if I have to."

  "Geez, alright already. No need to threaten me with the sweaty cleavage punishment. It's not like I'm a mass murderer or anything."

  "My cleavage is not punishment for being a mass murderer, fool."

  "Uh, Jayne?" asked Spike. "Are you engaging with a spirit? We're not supposed to do that, you know."

  "No. I'm engaging with an annoying pixie who's just begging to ride the shoe right now."

  "We are nearly there. If you could just manage to keep your voices down for a little bit farther ...," said Garrett.

  I heard a noise and put my hand to my stomach, trying to figure out if it was my body making it. I was pretty hungry, even though we'd had a snack in the kitchen earlier.

  Spike's hand came down on my shoulder, making me jump with fright. "Jesus, Spike! Ease up, dude." He dug his fingers in hard, making me flinch down to get away from it. "Holy crap, are you freakin' or what?"

  The rumbly, growly sound came again, only this time I knew it wasn't my stomach because it came from behind me. I stopped walking, a shiver of fear going up my spine. "Spike," I said, my voice quavering, "please tell me that's your stomach rumbling."

  And then there was a heavy breathing behind me that I knew for sure was not the respirations of my incubus friend. The claws that I suddenly realized were attached to the hand on my shoulder began to dig into my skin.

  "Tim," I whispered, "fly the hell away!"

  "What?" he asked. "I can't hear ya. Talk louder."

  "Fly away!" I yelled, jerking my shoulder out of the monster's grasp, feeling my shirt and skin tear in the process. I feinted to the side, the only evasive maneuver that came to mind.

  "Aaaack!" yelled Tim, his tiny weight disappearing from my neck. "Demon troll! Demon troll! Jayne ... the sword!"

  I struggled to pull the weapon free of its scabbard. A roar and shuffling of feet told me the beast was coming for me, but it was too dark for me to see anything clearly. The whispers of restless spirits rose and turned into a chorus of unholy screeches, their enveloping quality making me think I was hearing them in my head. I tripped over my own feet and fell backwards onto my butt. "I can't! I can't get it out!" I yelled, my hands scramb
ling to get the weapon free as my mind tried to block out the horrible sounds of wailing and screaming.

  Something grabbed my foot and started dragging me across the ground, deeper into the blackness, away from the direction I knew I should be going in to follow Garrett.

  I gave up on the sword and pulled Blackie out, bending forward towards whatever was dragging me and swinging it like a club, making contact with something solid. Whatever it was, it grunted and roared, its grip loosening on my leg. With my sudden freedom, I scrambled over in the direction I thought I was supposed to go, like a crazy crab.

  I thought I might be in the clear, when one of my arms buckled unexpectedly, and I fell to my side. I rolled over, trying to get back to my feet, the whole time the sounds of shuffling and growling mixed with the occasional roar and something that was almost juicy, making me think I probably wasn't going to survive this. I was blind and this thing lived in the dark. And it was hungry.

  I used the precious seconds I had left before the thing got to me again to finally pull the sword free. The slick sound of the blade running along the inside of its holder was like music to my ears. And then when the gems in the handle lit up as I tightened my grip around it, showing me clearly the space around me, I nearly wept with relief ... about a half second before I cried out in terror. "Aaaahhhh! Holy fuck!"

  It wasn't just one troll coming to dine on me, but three; and they were waaaay uglier than I had imagined them to be when they were just a clawed hand in the dark. They made Gorm the buggane look like a sure winner at the local beauty pageant, with their lumpy dark green skin, pointed brown teeth, saggy yellow eyes, oversized heads, huge nostrils, and hulking forms. The juicy sounds I'd heard were the slime globs that seemed to drop out of their mouths with regularity, hitting the floor for them to walk on.

  The light from my weapon seemed to bother their eyes. They threw their arms up in front of their faces, advancing towards me with more hesitant steps.

  "Stay back, trolls!" I yelled, moving the sword around a little experimentally. "I've got this ... demon blade made of ... demon metal, and I'm not afraid to use it!" The whole threat was a total lie, but hopefully they didn't have Maggie's truth-telling talents, even though I was pretty sure they shared the same hairdresser.

  "Spike!" I yelled. "Where are you?!" I looked around, holding up the sword to light up the areas next to and behind me, not seeing him anywhere. I started to whimper at the idea of being lost in this horrible place all by myself. "Tim? Spike? Garrett? Where are you guys? Did you leave me?"

  "Aaaaaahhhh!" I screamed involuntarily. One of the trolls had lunged for me when I was distracted, making me react like a total girly-girl. After I finished with my warrior's screech, I waved the sword at him like I'd seen Zorro do in a movie once. "Hee-yah!" I shouted, swishing and swashing, making the letter Z over and over in the air in front of me. "Take that you nasty-ass demon troll! Taste my bedazzled demon blade!" I nicked the closest one in the arm, making him roar with displeasure. Dark green goo came out of the wound, making me back away in disgust. "Oh, man, that is some nasty shit, mister troll," I grunted out in between more slashes. "I think you should go get that looked at."

  It held its arm out in front of its stomach, looking shocked at the mess I'd made of it. Its friends didn't seem to care much or worry that they might suffer the same fate, though. They moved in together, making me wish I'd taken sword fighting training at some point in the compound. Nothing had prepared me for this shit.

  I started waving that mofo around to beat the band. I thought my crazy Zs were something else before, but they were nothing compared to my shit now. Back and forth, up and down, figure eights and five pointed stars, not even a piece of lint was going to get through to me, let alone two, dark green, lumpy, ugly-ass troll assbags intent on eating me for dinner.

  Something grabbed my ankle. "Aaaahhhh!" I yelled, bringing the sword down to chop off the hand that rested there. As the weapon moved downward in its deadly arc, my brain connected the fact that this hand on my foot was white, human - not troll - and had a tiny piece of a tattoo connected to the bit of wrist I could see just beyond the edge of its shirt sleeve.

  I threw myself sideways to keep my blade from connecting, falling with a complete lack of grace and banging my own head with Blackie as I landed and made contact with the hard ground. The thunking it made was so hollow-sounding I was tempted to laugh at the idea that my head was as empty as a coconut. But the stinging pain and almost immediate dull throbbing that resulted from my self-ass-kicking, quickly erased the humor from my mind, leaving only anger and fear in its place.

  "Uhhhnnn ... ," moaned Spike.

  "Spike! Get through the veil! Follow Garrett!" I kicked him in the hand and arm a few times to get him moving. They were love-kicks, even though technically were probably going to leave bruises.

  "Uhhnnnn ... ," came his pitiful answer. Something had clunked him, but good. I could see the top part of his body, and his head had a little blood coming from the side of it, above his ear.

  "I'm here, Jayne! I'm here!" yelled Tim's tiny voice from somewhere behind Spike.

  "Tell Garrett to get Spike out of here. Drag him if you have to!"

  "What about you?" he asked, now buzzing near my face. He was in a panic, doing zig zags all over the place. He had his tiny dagger out and was holding it in front of him. If I hadn't seen him blind a demon with one before, I would have laughed at the thing being no bigger than the tiniest fingernail clipping; but I knew he'd risk himself to do that move all over again, and I didn't want that to happen - not when we were so close to getting out of this mess. I could sense the opening in the veil was near. We just had to get the hell away from these nasty beasts to get through it.

  The trolls took one look at Tim and got all antsy again, their roars and lip smacking telling me that pixie was their favorite flavor of chips and dip. The measly bit of sword-waving I was doing from the ground was losing its effect. They advanced again, and I found myself kicking the heck out of Spike to get him to release my foot. Luckily, he had very little strength left in his hand, and let go after only a few more jabs from my moccasin.

  "Aaack!" yelled Tim when he saw them coming, disappearing into the blackness again.

  So much for my superhero, I guess. Finally free of Spike's grasp, I stood again, swaying with the dizziness I'd caused by braining myself. I thrust my blade out and swished and parried and touchéed and everything else I could think to do with a sword, eventually falling back on good old-fashioned stabbing and poking like I'd seen Moriah try to do to my bubble-shield before. I only knew that Tim's retreat had been successful at not just escape but also finding Garrett when Spike suddenly disappeared, dragged into the blackness. My moment of fright that he was being taken for something's dinner dissipated when I saw Garrett's white face coming from the dark behind me. "Jayne! Come now!" He was waving like crazy, gesturing for me to follow him.

  I gave the trolls one last slash for good measure and dashed out of the area behind Garrett. I helped him lift Spike from the ground where he lay just a few feet away, the two of us dragging him to the door that I could see outlined in a dull, gray light just up ahead.

  "Is that what I think it is?" I grunted out, barely able to manage Spike's dead weight while also keeping the sword at the ready.

  "The door to the witch's abode? Yes." Garrett reached the door first and kicked it open, nearly launching Spike through the opening, surprising me with his strength. Tim was right behind him, and I was the caboose. I'd never been so happy about the idea of being in the Underworld as I was in the moment I stepped over the threshold of that door.

  I turned back to watch Garrett come through, but he stopped in the doorway.

  "Aren't you coming?" I asked, distractedly trying to put the sword back in its holder.

  "No. My journey ends here. Best of luck to you, young Jayne."

  "But ... how do I get to the dragons? And where are you going? And what about my friends who are in trouble?"


  "Follow the smell of sulfur. You will find all that you seek. And as for me, well, I will be in the void, awaiting your return." He bowed once, and then closed the door behind us.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  WE SPENT THE FIRST HALF-hour of our journey in the Underworld getting Spike conscious again. He'd gotten clubbed by something, a troll fist or a weapon that one of them carried, but luckily the only side-effects seemed to be a headache and a lump by his ear. I helped him to his feet and waited until he stopped swaying before we began walking.

  "Come on ... we'll take it slow until you feel more steady," I said, letting him use my shoulder as support. We moved away from the door in the void and further into what was the dark forest in the Here and Now. In the Underworld, it was the darker forest, since everything seemed to have that taint on it, even the meadows that should have been sunny, pretty places.

  "Those trolls are lucky I didn't unleash on 'em," said Tim, flying just ahead of us, doing some acrobatics now and again. He turned to face us, now buzzing backwards. He held up his thumb and forefinger. "I was this close. I'm serious. But I had to hold back. The spirits in there get a little too excited over violence. I had to play it cool." He reached up to fix his already perfect hair, using a comb he'd pulled from his fanny-pack.

  "Yeah, Tim. You played it cool, alright. Especially that part where you flew away screaming like a girl."

  He shoved his comb back in his little bag, zipping it up angrily. "It was a war cry, Jayne. A war cry. But what do you know ... you're no warrior. Pfft." Tim turned around and flew up ahead, blazing the trail for us.

  "Sorry about slowing us down so much," said Spike, trudging along, only wincing every once in a while now. "Troll got the jump on me, I guess. I never even saw it coming. Not cool."

  "Yeah, I think they can see in the dark. That's the second time I've had one sneak up on me. Hopefully, when we go back through we can avoid them." I wondered if there was such a thing as troll-be-gone spray. Maybe Samantha could whip something up before we passed through again.