"I can shut her up if you will allow it," said Leck.
That sobered me up pretty quickly. I held up my hand and stood straight. "No need, no need. I'm okay now." I wiped my brow, a huge smile still on my face. I looked over and noticed Jared smiling too, but mostly in a bemused sort of way.
I turned back to Ben. "Phew! That was amaaaazeballs. Total dopamine rush, you know? So anyway, where were we? Oh, yeah. You ruling the universe." I pressed my finger to my lips for effect, staying silent for a couple seconds before lifting my finger up, ready to make my point. "There's just one little problem with your lame-ass plan."
"There is no problem with the plan," said Maléna, gritting her teeth. "All the pieces are here. Everyone is ready. We do not need your permission."
I waved her away like she was a stupid little child. "No, no ... I know that, silly." I pointed my finger again. "But what you do need is an heir to the Hawthorne ... name? ... Throne? Whatever it is ... you need an heir. A full-blooded heir, right? An heir untainted by demon shenanigans, I'll bet. And in the words of my fine friend, Finn the green elf ... " I spread my arms wide and said, " ... you ain't got none." I bowed deeply for my invisible fans, waiting a full five seconds before I came up for air.
I stood again with a flourish, hands now on my hips, smiling big at my own awesome finish. I should have been in drama club. I would have kicked ass at that shit. Finn lifted his chin at me, smiling and giving me a thumbs up. Jared just shook his head, the confused smile still there. Niles was frowning, and Spike gave me a wink.
"You have no idea what you're talking about," snapped Ben.
"Ohhhh, yes I do."
"No. You don't."
I sighed heavily. "Yes. I. Do." I walked over closer to him. "Your father was the demon Torrie Silverthorne, not Garrett Hawthorne. Demon shenanigans, get it? Your mother was Shayla Blackthorne. You're missing the full Hawthorne gene, dude. So no-can-do on the little dragon charm or whatever you've got cooked up here."
I looked over at Samantha, who finally seemed to have snapped out of her coma. She blinked once, slowly, but said nothing, her face a mask of non-expression. I still had no idea whose side she was on, but she wasn't scowling at me like she used to do all the time. Maybe this zombie face was her I'm-on-your-side look. I was going to go with that theory until she gave me a reason to think otherwise.
Ben strode over to me, staring me down for a few tense seconds before going back to stand in front of Maléna. "Tell her she's wrong. Tell her she doesn't know what she's talking about."
Maléna looked over at me like she was bored, her tone matching her expression. "You're wrong, you don't know what you're talking about."
Ben backed up, looking from Maléna to Leck. "Leck, tell her."
Leck shrugged. "You're going to take the word of a changeling over that of your fae family?" He shook his head. "I knew you weren't worthy."
"I'm worthy," growled Ben, spinning to look at Samantha. "Do you know anything about this? Tell me!"
She shook her head almost imperceptibly left and right, but she said not a word. It was then that I saw the first sign of emotion in her eyes ... and it was anger. Anger at Ben.
Oh, shit. Ben is so going down right now, and he has no friggin idea. I didn't know the details of it, but I had a sneaking suspicion this was some kind of setup. Maléna and Leck were being disrespectful to him and almost mocking him in a way. Samantha just looked determined to get him back for being a dickweed. And here we all were standing in their circle of awfulness, either as pawns to sacrifice or necessary parts to their recipe for disaster. I put my hands on my head, trying to hold all my thoughts together and force them to make sense.
"Jayne, what's wrong?" asked Jared, obviously not caring what anyone thought or if they heard.
"Let's begin," said Maléna.
Leck held out his hand in front of him and to the side. Maléna laid hers over his and closed her eyes.
Wind came whipping into the room, stirring up the dust and smallest pebbles, sending them zinging around the room to sting our exposed skin. I threw my arm across my face, looking up at the ceiling in time to see Tim tuck himself into a crack in the stone above our heads.
"Now, Ben!" yelled Maléna, and a moment later, a wall of fire sprung up on the edges of the circle.
"Leck!" she yelled, nodding at him.
Leck turned to face Spike and then Finn, both of them instantly dropping to their knees and screaming out in agony while holding their heads.
I ran over to Finn and then Spike falling to their sides to hold onto first one and then the other. They were both panting and screaming, their brains being melted by Leck even worse than mine had been. I'd never heard a human or fae sound like this before. I knew it was only a matter of time before he killed them or turned them into vegetables.
"Jayne!" shouted Maléna. "Bring your elements to join ours!"
"No!" I screamed; and then Jared dropped to his knees, slapping his hands to his head and falling onto his side as he roared in pain.
"Do it, Jayne!" yelled Samantha. "We are Blackthorne!"
If she had said anything else I probably would have run over and punched her lights out. But it was when she called on our family name that I knew ... I knew we were family ... and family sticks together.
I called to the Earth and the Water, opening my heart and my mind as wide as they'd ever been, summoning the power of my elements in a way that I knew I'd never do again. This would be the end of me. This would kill me. It would finish my lifetime as a fae, as short as it had been, and begin my new one in the Underworld, probably. But whatever Samantha was going to do was for the good of our people, and that was good enough for me.
I didn't bother keeping the elements out of my eyes. Blues and greens burst from my irises and melded with the ring of fire that slowly closed in on us. The mountain rumbled and shook beneath our feet.
The pitiful screams of my friends continued, and the weeping of a dwarf entered the symphony of pain to make it just that much more horrible. When a great and powerful being breaks under the pressure of evil, something in our collective spirit breaks too. I was glad there would still be pieces of my soul in boxes under my bed. Maybe someday I would be whole again if just a part of me survived this.
The sound waves crashed into me like physical things, eventually pushing me closer and closer to Samantha. Through the kaleidoscope of color I could see her arms up, a staff in one hand and something glowing in the other. I didn't care what it was. I knew she was channeling some next-level magic that I'd probably never see again. Whatever it was, it made the room beautiful. We were in a snow-globe of magic, pieces of it floating all around us, completely unaffected by gravity. The wind existed outside of it somehow, blowing our hair and tunics but never touching the magic.
All of the sound in the room built to a cacophony filled with vibrations and colors and fire and water spraying in the wind ... and then it suddenly ended. The moment Samantha dropped her arms in a sweeping gesture, the sound disappeared and everything went white.
I was alone. I wasn't there or anywhere else, for a brief moment in time or for a brief moment entirely outside of time, I didn't even know. My eardrums felt like they'd been popped completely out. I could hear the sounds of my own breathing and pulse like they were playing over speakers in between my ears. I gasped in and out, trying to breathe. There was no air. No air! I was suffocating! Dying!
I was on the ground now, kicking, my lungs straining, struggling to breathe, not ready to die. "I don't want to die!" I gasped out into the non-space. "I'm not ready to die! I want to live!" I screamed with my last breath.
And then ... I was dead. And everything went black.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX
THE SMELL OF SULFUR WAS nauseating, and the heat was becoming unbearable. I wanted to move away from it, but I couldn't - I was trapped. Trapped in hell!
I sat up quickly and screamed. I screamed and screamed and screamed until something whacked me on the side o
f the head.
I realized then that my eyes were closed, so I opened them and found myself facing a wall of red. Blood. Everyone's been murdered. I began to cry, dropping my face into my hands.
A purring began behind me or in front of me maybe, I wasn't sure. It was a curious enough sound that my weeping went softer, so I could hear what this thing was and maybe make some sense of it as I continued wallowing in my grief.
It was followed by a big - whooooff - of sound and wind and ugh, sulfur again. Am I at a wake or a funeral? Did someone bring deviled eggs? The thought of devils and eggs and the stink, slowly started to break through my confusion and the sadness that seemed to be pressing down on me like a very uncomfortable wool blanket.
I looked slowly to my left, the place where the woofing or the snorting or whatever it was seemed to be coming from. And that's when I saw the giant horned and scaled head that belonged to a very large and very heavily-toothed and clawed dragon.
I screamed bloody murder and backed as far away from it as I could get. I bumped into something hard but then again a little flexible, and I turned to see the wall of red that I'd earlier assumed was blood. My own face was reflected back at me a hundred different times in the scales of the dragon that was wrapped around me.
My hand raised up of its own accord to touch the scales that shined so bright they looked like they were covered in a thousand coats of varnish or clear nail polish. They were a smooth as glass but slightly warm to the touch. Alive. I laughed at the lunacy of it all.
I turned to look at the giant dragon eyeball that was close enough that I could have thrown Blackie at it. I looked down and saw that it was still in the sheath at my leg. "Huh, that's weird," I said. "I didn't know you got to keep your weapons in the Underworld when you died." My other leg still had Moriah's sword strapped to it too.
"You do not," said the voice of the dragon in my head.
My mouth dropped open for a second as the ramifications ran through my brain. "You mean ... I'm not dead?"
The giant dragon head shifted left and right. "No."
I was almost afraid to ask, but I had to. "What about my friends?"
"All is as it should be."
I rolled my eyes. Wow. Helpful. "So what's the deal? Am I stuck here now, or can I go home?"
"Do you not have things to accomplish while you are here?"
"Well, yeah. I was supposed to get all my friends and then come make a deal with a ... dragon." I looked at the giant yellow eye staring back at me and finished. "I think you're the one. Are you Biad?"
"I am she."
"Oh. Well, that's handy. I guess I came to the right place, then."
"You were sent here by your friend, the witch."
"Oh. Samantha did this? I guess I need to thank her."
"Feel free," came a voice off to my left.
I couldn't stop the grin from splitting my face. I climbed over the dragon tail that encircled the little spot I'd been sitting in and met Samantha as she approached. I embraced her in a hug so hard I was pretty sure I heard a few of her vertebrae crack.
"Whoa, okay, you're welcome." She patted my back awkwardly.
I stepped away, beaming up at her. "You have no idea how happy I am to not be dead."
She laughed. "Probably as happy as the rest of them are."
"They're all alive?!" I yelled.
She leaned back a little. "Yes, of course. You don't think I'd let them die, do you?"
I frowned. "Well, no ... but I wasn't sure that you were exactly, you know, in charge of what was going on in there."
She smiled, almost patiently. "Just a spell or two to enhance the mood. No big."
"No big? Are you nuts? That was friggin amazing! I've never seen anything like it! I was, like ... totally blown away. I thought I was dead. Deader than dead."
She smiled awkwardly. "You might have been ... a tiny bit dead. But you're not now, right?" Her eyebrows going up into her hair were a dead giveaway that some shit had gone down, but I was too happy to worry about it now.
"So what's the next move?" I asked. "Back to the Here and Now? Please? Tell me we can go."
"You have a bargain to make, I think," she said softly, looking over my shoulder at the giant beast that sat behind me huffing out the sulfur stink.
"Oh. Yeah," I said, turning around. "Wish me luck," I said over my shoulder.
"Jayne?" Samantha called out.
"Yeah?" I asked, turning partway and stopping.
"Just be yourself."
I laughed. "I can count on one hand the times anyone has ever said that to me, in almost eighteen years of life. Not good odds. Are you sure you don't want to change your advice?"
"Hell no. Don't take any shit from that dragon."
I smiled and turned back. Yeah. She's a Blackthorne.
CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN
BIAD WAS WAITING FOR ME, blinking her eye once as I approached.
"Hello, Biad the badass," I said.
"Hello, Jayne of Blackthorne."
"I've come to make you an offer you can't refuse."
"I wish to hear your offer. Please proceed."
"The fae want you to come and guard the portal to the Underworld. They know The Dark can't do it because they ... you know ... killed him and all. So they want you to do it instead."
"I cannot serve alone. It is not in my nature to be without a companion."
"Yeah. I've heard that about you guys. So what are your terms? Everything's negotiable. You can have a companion, and I'll even throw in this handy dandy dragon tooth if you agree." I pulled the Dark of Blackthorn from it sheath and held it out at her.
A puff of smoke and a lick of flame came out of her mouth. "My mate will be pleased."
"The question is, will you be pleased? The fae need you. The humans need you. And hey, you could come out of the Underworld, that's a bonus, right?"
"It could be appealing ..."
"If ...?" I sensed the boom about to be lowered.
"If the companion was to my liking."
"Well, there's this guy Ben who wants to be your companion and the companion of Heryon too."
"He cannot. This has already been decided. He is where he belongs. The bargain was struck."
"Well, I guess his rule-the-world plan didn't work out. That's good. Well, who do you want? We have green elves, silver elves - there's a great one named Céline who I think you'd like, and we could keep her out of that nasty soul-stealing business if you took her on - plus we have some sprites, sirens, succubi, ..."
"I wish for an elemental. No other fae will do."
I felt sick to my stomach. "Oh, that sucks, because you know, that Ben guy ... he's an elemental. The best one there is. Fire, Wind ... the works. I can get in touch with him if you want, see if he's available?"
"That is enough. You know what you must do. Make your decision and leave me."
"Don't you mean make my decision or leave you?"
"No."
I was totally confused now. "I assume it's me you're offering this wonderful opportunity to - and I don't mean to be rude by turning you down because it's a huge honor, I know - but I have a life back in the Here and Now and a new boyfriend who I've got big plans for and, well, I just don't have time to live in the Underworld. Plus, all the demons and orcs down here are always trying to kill me. I'm not sure how long I'd survive as your companion."
"You do not understand the life of the companion. If the bargain is struck, neither of us will be in this realm any longer. We will move to the portal to stand guard."
"All day. All night. Stand in a doorway? I'm pretty sure that's just another form of hell."
"If it were, I would never agree to it. The portals exist in the place where the human world and fae worlds coexist, not very far from where you live with the fae in the Green Forest. You would not be expected to stand guard - merely to visit with me from time to time and discuss things with me as they cross our minds. There might also be occasions where you would seek things that I req
uire and bring them to me."
"Are you talking about food? Because I refuse to deliver fae or demons for you to eat."
"Do not be foolish."
My face turned a little red at that, but I refused to feel stupid when there was a room full of food just down the hall for this dragon's meals. How was I supposed to know I wasn't the food procurer or whatever? "So how often would we meet?"
"Often enough that I do not become bored or disillusioned. At the equinox."
"That's like ... twice a year, right?"
"Yes. You may come more often as you wish. You will have full access to our realm."
The whole 'our realm' thing was a little creepy, but the rest of it sounded do-able. I could take a trip to wherever this place was twice a year to have a little chit-chat with a dragon. That might actually be cool. "Do I get to ride on your back?"
"If you wish."
A shiver of anticipation ran up my spine. "If I agree to this bargain, can I do it now?"
"Yes."
I thought about what Tony would say and Spike smiling at me. Then I pictured Becky jumping up and down and clapping her hands. I knew Finn and Robin and all the green elves would be over the moon about it. The only ones I could imagine not being happy with this arrangement were Maléna and Leck.
"Okay. Let's do this."
"The bargain has been struck. Come forward, elemental, and accept your duty."
Now a shiver of fear went through my body. It sounded so formal. So final. So ... intense.