The Changelings

  "I'm not sure I'm going to be able to do that, seeing as how I don't even know who or what they are." I waited for her brain to catch up. "When we were in that hospital together, you told me you were a wyvern, and I also learned that a wyvern was a small dragon. Sooo, what I'm saying is, I kind of already knew what I was looking for when I woke you up or whatever. If you can't tell me who these Others are, I don't know how I'm going to call them for you. Or are you going to be the one to call them?"

  We will call them together. She opened her wings fully, and I realized at that point that I hadn't yet seen them do that before. They were a lot bigger than they looked when they were against her back or only partially unfolded. I prayed she wasn't going to ask me to get on her back because the dragons I was used to riding were about twenty times her size. If she tried to take off in flight with me on her, she'd probably crash and burn before the end of the runway. She took a step toward me and Mike followed.

  I took a step back. "Whoa, wait, are we doing this now? Because I really need to go into the Gray to get Tony and Spike, so if it's going to take a long time, maybe we can put it off until tomorrow."

  There is no time to wait.

  I warred with myself. I wanted to put my foot down and say that I was getting my boyfriend and my best friend first, and that was all there was to it; I'd been delayed long enough. But the wyvern had been telling me from the beginning that time was drawing short, and she seemed to think that we were going to need her friends to shut down the danger that was threatening our world.

  I didn't want to sacrifice two fae—Spike and Tony—who I loved more than anything in the world for the rest of the fae and humans out there. But was I being selfish in wanting them with me before I did anything else and dissing the rest of the world in the process? It kind of felt like I was, and since I had decided before that I needed to follow the Ben-dragon's advice and listen to my gut, I nodded my head in agreement. "Okay. How and when are we going to do this?"

  Here. Now. She reached her clawed arms out and grabbed my hands. I had only a moment to appreciate how dexterous those little claws were before I was suddenly jerked out of my reality and pulled into hers.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  AT FIRST THERE was only darkness. The wyvern and I were together as one presence in what felt like deep space. The garden had gone cold and dark, empty and vast. Soon, more sensations came to me, and I learned what it felt like to inhabit a small dragon's body. There was magic in every single one of her cells—an energy like I'd never felt before—and a burning desire to be elsewhere. I learned that dragons, even the small ones like Long, were not what you would call mainstream fae. They preferred the company of their own kind or none at all, and being in this garden with pixies and an ogre was confining. Having all those other fae sharing her air was like forcing her to breathe through heavy pollution. But all of it was preferable to the feeling of being without The Others.

  Now that I was with Long, inside her head and her heart, I knew what she meant by The Others. There were more ancient fae out there in the world, and not just small wyverns like her, but other fae who had a similar affinity to this magical energy and who had long been forgotten by the creatures living in this compound. I got the impression they were similar to ghosts, but more present than a phantom could ever be. I saw them as specters of light and dark. They were attracted by my thoughts and feelings and repelled in the same way. In ancient times, they answered the calls of people and fae who sent out signals to them unawares. They were old spirits who'd chosen to remain hidden for eons, but the time had come for them to be revealed. They weren't the Forsaken, but they inhabited the same plane of existence. They were The Others.

  My elements came to me without me even having to ask. I had an inkling of a feeling and suddenly they were there. I was on autopilot of sorts, pulling energy from everything around me and using it to fuel the Becoming. It was what I called the process of bringing those who lived in the shadows out into the light to join the fae and humans once again, joining our ranks for the final showdown against the Forsaken.

  These specters—The Others—came forth with wings, but they were not angels. Their feathers had no solid form, and as I saw the beings float past, I wasn't even sure the wings were there. They passed right by me as I stood there in the garden, neither acknowledging nor ignoring me. It was as if they were preoccupied and didn't have time to notice their surroundings. I didn't know where they were going, but the wyvern seemed to, and I felt confident that they would listen to her when we needed them to. Long was, in a way, their Savior.

  No one had to tell me this; it was something that was communicated on a very basic level. They were part of the elements I was channeling in a very primitive way. While these creatures normally preferred to live in the shadows, they knew the time for their revelation—their Becoming—was here and that their presence was critical. Without them, the fae and humans would perish. It was not that we didn't have the numbers to defeat this small group of evil beings—the Forsaken. It was that we lacked the energy, which is something these specters nurtured and stored until it was needed. Neither humans nor fae had needed this much energy since the Others had left our realm, but we did now. It was the first time I fully understood how truly, horribly, and awfully powerful they were.

  I felt a stirring in my belly. The wyvern that I was still connected to sensed it. She hadn't realized before that I was pregnant. I felt the heat in her body rise and the magic stir in her cells.

  Don't hurt them, I said in my mind—the piece of it that still belonged to Jayne Blackthorn.

  Too precious, she said. They will be protected. And they will be defeated.

  I didn't know what she meant by that, but my mind and body were too occupied with being part dragon to argue or ask questions. I waited in anticipation for the Becoming to be over, because I sensed the ending was near. As Long's clawed hands slowly dragged away from mine and finally released me, I felt my fae girl connection separate from her wyvern energy, returning her magical vibrations to her and my more muted ones back to me.

  I desperately wanted to open my eyes and talk to her and Mike about what had just happened, but my eyelids wouldn't cooperate. I felt dizzy all of a sudden and my world tipped sideways, the atmosphere so heavy it felt like it was pressing into me from all sides. My legs collapsed under me, and there was nothing I could do to cushion my fall. My head hit something hard and everything went black, and this time, there were no shadows and no ephemeral creatures waiting in the darkness to be released. I was left to my blissfully unconscious sleep that was thankfully devoid of both nightmares and dreams.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  I WOKE SOMETIME later in my bed. The only one in the room with me was Tim. He was lounging on his side, stretched out on the pillow next to mine. I blinked my eyes several times to clear them of sleep and took a moment to yawn, breathing out at him forcefully.

  He fanned the space in front of his nose as he grimaced. "Whew. Somebody needs a breath mint…,"—he fanned harder—"…or twenty."

  "Somebody needs a shower, too." I still had dragon goop in my eyelashes. I reached up and rubbed at them, finding my lashes stuck together.

  "Well, you finally got that nap, anyway." He stretched his body, throwing his arms overhead and pointing his toes like a ballerina. "Felt goooood."

  "How long have I been asleep?" I lifted my arm, halfway expecting a watch to be there, but all I saw were a few freckles. I checked my palm and the dragon scale was still there, but it was a dull, dark red. Tapping on it did nothing to change it.

  "About five hours," Tim said. "Just long enough for the wyvern to escape, the crazy spirits she released from the gates of hell to haunt every corner of the compound, and the Council to work itself into a serious snit."

  I closed my eyes and tried really hard to force myself back to sleep. "Wake me up when it's all over."

  "And miss all the fun? Come on. Let's get up and go. Lest ye forget, we have a couple of brave men to
rescue from the Gray."

  I yawned again, forcing my dragon-gooed eyes open. "Who can we get to help us? Because the last time I saw Brad, he looked like total shit."

  "And he still looks like shit, although not as much as he did before. But he's not our answer. I've got somebody better in mind. Someone more experienced."

  I inhaled deeply and then heaved myself up into a sitting position, taking a moment to flex my muscles and stretch my back. Several of my vertebrae cracked loudly. It felt like I'd been asleep for a year.

  "All you need to do is get showered and changed, and we can head out. I assume you're ready to rock and roll?" Tim asked.

  "Heck yeah, I'm ready. So, who's this dude that's going to take us into the Gray?" I got out of bed and went into the bathroom. Tim flew in behind me.

  "Goose. Remember him?"

  "How could I forget that guy?" I asked. I delivered my guardian angel Chase to that Dark Fae wrathe after Tim had accidentally released some serious butt dust on my daemon. That was the beginning of some seriously crazy shit in my life. It still made me sad to think about losing Chase to the Overworld, even though I knew that was where he belonged.

  Tim snorted. "Seriously. I mean the guy told you to impale me and you actually listened to him."

  "And we happened to save Chase's life doing it, so I'm not going to apologize."

  "Looking back now, though, do you really think the impaling was necessary? I mean, seeing as how Chase is a guardian angel and everything?"

  "I'm not going to start second-guessing everything I did in the past. It worked, Chase ended up saving me from the Dark Fae torture chambers and Leck's evil clutches too, so I'm calling it a win."

  I brushed my teeth while Tim spoke. "Okay, so here's the deal. Goose is going to meet us out in the meadow once he hears that you're awake and ready to go."

  I paused my teeth brushing. "Should I contact him? Maybe we should send him a message."

  "I already did. Willy's on it."

  "Willy's on it? Is that a good idea?" I could just picture that little bumble bee getting lost in the woods, forcing the entire pixie colony to have to launch a search and rescue.

  "Seriously, Jayne, you have to trust me on this. He's been through some high-level training."

  I rolled my eyes and continued with my brushing, mumbling, "Whatever." What was high-level pixie training? I could only guess, and my imagination could have very easily run away from me, so I let it go.

  "Goose is on call, waiting to take us into the Gray. He can't stay in for long, but he knows what we need. He's accepted the sacrifice that he must make."

  I spit into the sink. "Jesus, it's not like we're asking him to give up his life or anything."

  "True. Kind of. But the Gray has changed a little since you were in there last, so…"

  I rinsed my mouth. "How has it changed?" I got the distinct impression I was about to hear some more bad news—worse news than the fact that a goofy baby pixie was now managing my fae communication network.

  "I guess the Forsaken have gotten some of the dark spirits a little riled up, so I think they're, like, having parties in there and stuff. And the minute we show up, you're going to be the guest of honor. Pin the tail on the elemental is a party game I hear they're itching to play."

  "We'll just have to go in there with guns blazing." I stood and checked my look in the mirror. There were bags under my eyes and a dullness to my irises that might have concerned me in an earlier life, but considering all I'd gone through, I figured I was looking pretty good, bald head and all.

  Tim glanced down at my leg that had Blackie holstered to it. "I don't know if you remember, but your stuff doesn't exactly work in there."

  "Oh, yeah. I had forgotten that." The Gray was one of those places where Blackie was just a stick instead of an awesome dragon fang that could sizzle demon skin on contact. How massively inconvenient.

  "But, hey, I hear the wyvern wants to tag along, and she seems to have a lot of friends for someone so new to the business of being fae, so that's good news. I think."

  "And by friends, you mean…?"

  "All those crazy spirits you let out of the shadows. An interesting group, I have to say." Tim was tapping his chin and looking off into the distance.

  I searched my memory for the creatures I'd seen whizz past me. "I don't remember a lot of it, but they seemed like ghosts or something. Ghosts with wings."

  "That might've been you making them look that way, because when I looked at them, I saw pixies with big, big, big wings. I think they can pretty much take whatever form they want."

  I leaned on the sink, wondering what it would mean for a fae to appear different depending on who was looking at it. "Really? That is interesting." I tried to recall what I felt when they were near me. "When you saw them, were you happy or sad? Did they appear as your worst nightmare or your best dream?"

  "Hmmm…happy or sad? Neither, really. I just looked at them and said, 'Hey, look at that pixie with those weird and really big wings. What's up with that?'" He paused. "What about you?"

  "I don't remember being happy or sad. Just curious. I thought the wings were made of feathers, but then I could see they weren't. It was like they had just the idea of wings on their backs." I was having a hard time describing these beings because I had never experienced anything like them before. They were there, but not there. Real but not real. Ghosts but not ghosts and not pixies either. Others.

  "Exactly. They're like the Transformers of the fae world, but different. Like…Transformators."

  I nodded. "Transformators. Yeah. I like that. I can work with that." It sounded way more fun than calling them The Others. Having the Forsaken running around was spooky enough. We needed stuff to lighten the mood.

  "Soooo…wanna hop in the shower so we can skedaddle outta here?" Tim threw his elbows out to the side and did a goofy imitation of a tap dancer along the edge of the sink. I think it was meant to motivate me.

  "Yeah. Right. First, de-stinkify, and then skedaddle."

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  I GOT IN the shower for the second time that day and quickly rinsed off. Spike and Tony, just hang in there; I'm coming to get you. I imagined they could hear me, but then I felt a spark of panic. What if they were beyond hearing me? Would I be too late? I just took a six hour nap for chrisssakes. What was I thinking?

  I reached up to rinse my head and felt a lump on the back of my skull that was painful to the touch. Oh. That's right. I knocked myself out. It's not like I chose to take a six hour nap. My guilt lessened by a tiny fraction. Once finished, I stepped out of the shower and toweled off, dressing in record time. I was gazing around my bedroom when Tim came over and landed on my chest of drawers.

  "What're you looking for?" he asked.

  "Backpack."

  "What do you need a backpack for?"

  "I don't know. We're going on a quest or whatever…" The dragon's words were floating through my head. Then I remembered how cranky she seemed. "Maybe I should pack some dragon snacks or something."

  "You don't need a backpack, and you don't need dragon snacks, either. Come on." Tim flew over to the garden area and shouted. "Abby! We're leaving. Are you ready?"

  I was surprised to see Tim's wife fly around the corner with traveling gear on that included a sword strapped to her hip.

  "Are you serious?" I asked. I wasn't sure who I was addressing, Tim or Abby. I put my own weapons back on my body—a dragon fang and a knife that turns into a sword, yeah baby.

  She ignored me. "Yes, I'm ready. Willy is going to meet us out in the meadow."

  I shook my head at them. Either they were totally delusional or I had been gone a lot longer than I realized. How was it possible that Willy was out on his own like that…in public, where innocent fae might be wandering around?

  Tim and Abby flew over to the door and hovered, waiting for me to open it.

  I decided to occupy my mind with things other than their questionable parenting decisions. There was defi
nitely no lack of things for me to think about that were more important. First, I had to get the lowdown from Goose about what was going on in the Gray and how I could locate my friends in there. Then I had to actually go in and rescue their butts without getting maimed in the process. Yeah…there were just a few things on my mind more critical than a wayward pixie kid.

  Halfway down the hallway, we were joined by Scrum who came jogging up from behind.

  "Hey, man, what're you doing?" I asked.

  "I think a better question would be what are you doing?" he said breathlessly.

  "I'm going to go get Tony and Spike." I grinned big, hoping he'd buy the idea that it was no big deal. Yep…just going to saunter into the Gray, grab a couple dudes, and saunter out…as easy as falling asleep.

  "That's what I thought. And that's what I'm doing too."

  "I don't know if that's a good idea, Scrum." He could seriously complicate things by telling me I shouldn't do what I wanted to do because it was too dangerous. He was really good at that; he smelled danger like I smelled pixie toots—way too easily and way too frequently.

  "Wherever you go, I go." He faced me, walking sideways rapidly to keep up with my hurried pace. "Jayne, please…I'm tired of being left in the background. I'm tired of running to catch up. I don't care what you say, I'm doing this with you, and I don't want to debate it with you anymore. Being a daemon is more than my job; it's my life, and my place is with you."

  Maybe I should have argued with him a little harder, but it felt good to have that strong daemon by my side. His heart was pure, and so were his intentions. I just didn't want him to get hurt. "It's going to be dangerous, though."

  "Danger is my middle name." He almost tripped as he went from side jogging to facing forward again. He caught himself with a hand on the wall and bounced back into position, swinging his arms as he walked fast next to me.

  I burst out laughing at his lack of coordination and his bravado. It was so unlike him to brag like that. "Scrum Dangerous Daemon. I like it."