Darkness & Light (War of the Fae: Book 3) (23 page)

“What does that mean?”

“It means that I haven’t lived my whole life in the Green Forest,
if you must know.”

“I don’t
have
to know, but I want to.
 
Where have you lived?”

“Around.”

“Okay, you’re obviously still pissed at me.
 
I get it.
 
Maybe when you cool down you can tell me.”

Tim chose that moment to fart, so I decided to stop trying to engage him in any conversation.
 

The healer came back with a long, thin box.
 
“The blood is in here.
 
You have about an hour or so before it will no longer be useful to the witch.”

“Thanks,” I said, grabbing it from him, putting Tim on my shoulder, and heading out the door.

“Sorry if I jiggle you too much, Tim, but we gotta hurry.”

I rushed down the corridor as fast as I could, picturing in my mind the door that we had gone through with Chase just the night before.

Soon we were out in the Green Forest, near the meadow that Chase had danced in.
 
It was then that I realized I was probably going to be really early and Goose wouldn’t be there yet.
 
The blood was going to go bad before he got there.

I stomped my way through the flowers and then into the forest on the other side of it.
 
I was headed back to the big tree where I’d tried to heal Chase, cussing the entire way.

“Motherfucker, bastard,
shitballs
,
dickbag
,
fuckhat
, ass wanker
... !
”

“Jayne!” yelled Tim.

“What
?!
”

“Are you praying or what?”

“What the hell is that supposed to mean?”

He giggled.
 
“I don’t know.
 
I figured a girl like you maybe said her prayers like that.”

“You know ... I could send you across this entire meadow with one flick of my finger,
buttwad
.”

“Ooh, that’s another good one.
 
Buttwad
.
 
I wish I had a pen.
 
I’m learning so much today.”

“Yeah, me too.
 
Like how scrawny and pale your legs are.”

I heard a little responding sound.

“Fart on my shoulder one more time and you’re going to ride on the top of my shoe from now on.”

“I have a digestive problem.
 
It’s a handicap.
 
You shouldn’t bring it up.”

“Handicap my ass.
 
Try eating something other than fruit.”

“I have.
 
It gets worse.”

“Okay, fine.
 
Stick to the fruit.
 
Not to change the subject or anything because you know how much I like to hear about your intestinal problems, but do you know how to call that Goose guy?
 
I don’t want this blood to go bad.”

“No way.
 
I’m no Gray walker.”

“You make that sound as if being one is a bad thing.”

“Well, duh, it is.”

My concern about getting the pixie blood to Goose in time was now overshadowed by my worry for Tony.
 
“Why?”

“Too many fae have gotten lost in there.
 
No-thank-you.
 
I prefer the light of day.”

“How do they get lost?”

“Dunno.
 
They just do.
 
I never go in there.
 
The Gray is not a good place for pixies.
 
The spirits and fae who inhabit that place are in bad need of
pixying
and they know it.
 
They see a pixie and
whammo
, it’s all over.
 
Pixie squish.”

“Pixie squish?”

“Yes.
 
It’s not pretty, believe me.”

We reached the old tree that now showed no signs of having been Chase’s hitching post.

“So what the hell am I supposed to do now?”

“Wait?”

“Yes, thanks, that’s helpful.”
 
Pain in the ass pixie.

All I could hear was the sound of birds chirping and the breeze gently blowing through the leaves in the trees.
 
I smiled despite my worries.
 
It really was a beautiful place here, wherever we were.
 
We sat there for what seemed like hours just chatting.

“Tim?”

“Yeah?”

“Where are we?”

“Uh ... is this a trick question? ... We’re in the Green Forest.”

“Yeah, I know that.
 
But where is the Green Forest?
 
Like what country?”

“You mean on one of the human maps?”

“Yeah.”

“France.”

“I
knew
it!”

“How’d you know it?”

I shrugged.
 
“I don’t know.
 
Travel times.
 
Computer.”
 
I’d used the computer room at the compound several times when Tony and I were separated.
 
At some point I’d seen a website identifying my computer’s IP address as being in France or Europe.

“So where in France are we exactly?”

“Ardennes.”

“Is that like a town or something?”

“No.
 
It’s a department.
 
A region.”

“Oh.”
 
I wished I’d paid better attention in geography class.
 
I’m sure a review of France had been in there somewhere.
 
Maybe back in sixth grade.
 
Then it struck me how similar that name sounded to our mysterious and fearless
leader’s
.

“Sounds like Dardennes.
 
Is that a coincidence?”

“No.
 
Dardennes means ‘from Ardennes’.
 
The ‘D’ used to have an apostrophe after it.
 
It’s French.
 
Lots of us are actually from Ardennes, but we don’t usually bother with last names like the humans do.
 
Most of us anyway.”

I looked up through the
trees,
trying to gauge what time it was by the position of the sun.
 
I gave up, since I pretty much suck at any type of navigation.

“We are totally screwed.
 
What am I going to do about Chase?”
 
I was trying not to stress too much, but I was losing the battle.
 
I felt the tears of frustration start to prick my eyes.
 

“
Shh
!”
whispered Tim in my ear, suddenly grabbing a handful of my hair.

“Ouch.
 
What?”
I whispered back.

“Quick!
 
Hide!”

I didn’t question him; I just followed his order.
 
I ran behind the big tree, to the side opposite of where we were.

“What is it?” I asked as quietly as I could.

“
Shhh
,” was his only response.
 
I could feel his tiny body trembling on my shoulder.
 
I felt him move sideways to get deeper into my hair.

Sounds of movement through the underbrush deeper in the trees caught my attention.
 
I strained my eyes to see what it was, but it was too dark where the sound was coming from.
 
I found out soon enough, though, that I didn’t need to see who was coming.
 
I could smell them – it was like the stench of rotten meat and smelly feet all mixed together.

A group of four orcs walked up to the spot near the tree where we’d just been standing.

I tried not to make a sound, reaching out with my mind to tap into The Green.
 
Whatever was going to happen, I wanted that safety net there for Tim and me.
 
I reached down slowly and pulled Blackie out of its sheath at my leg.
 
It could make even the biggest orc sizzle with
dragonfire
if need be.
 
Holy shit, how I hoped it wouldn’t come to that.
 
Four against one – my odds were not good
at all.

This was one of those times I wished I had telepathy like the green elves do.
 
I’d be
telepathying
my ass off to everyone I knew right now.
 
Help me!
 
Save my ass before it gets eaten!
 
But for now, all I had was my Earth power and my dragon tooth.
 
I didn’t know if
pixeying
worked on orcs, but I was afraid that – one –
I’d
accidentally get pixied and that would suck more than being molested by an orc in the long run, and – two – that a dancing, singing orc was so fundamentally wrong it would somehow throw off the balance of the Earth’s rotation and end the world as we know it.
 
So I decided not to consider Tim’s help as a possible solution.
 
I hoped he had followed the same path of reason that I did so he wouldn’t take it upon himself to jump out and ‘help’ me.
 
Maybe, hopefully, his impetuous
pixelation
of Chase had taught him it was a bad idea to pixie in the presence of friends.

The orcs were grunting to one another, moving closer to where I was hiding.
 
One of them was sniffing the air like a hunting dog.
 
As they got nearer, I took a tentative step to the side, thinking if I could just keep the tree between them and me, they’d never see me and we’d be safe.
 
Unfortunately, I stepped on a dry twig that snapped loud enough to sound unnatural and catch their attention.

Four ugly, black, lumpy heads turned simultaneously in my direction.
 
The chorus of roars and grunts told me, even though I didn’t speak a word of
orcan
, that I’d been discovered.
 
I quickly ran around the tree, trying to get back to the more open space where I’d had the conversation with Goose last night.
 
I needed room to maneuver.

These orcs were faster than the ones I’d dealt with last time during my changeling test.
 
I had just enough time to get in place with my legs spread wide in fighting stance before they rushed me.

In the instant before they reached me, I thought how totally bogus it is that in the movies whenever the group of bad guys is attacking, they do it one at a time, giving the
attackee
time to kick each of their asses, one at a time.
 
These orcs obviously didn’t go to any bad guy school of etiquette or the movies much, because
they
were all on me at once in two seconds, like flies on shit –
me being the shit, of course
.

I swung Blackie out in a wide arc, zero finesse to the move and absolute desperation as my guide.
 
I heard and smelled the sizzle of their black skin as it made contact and burned them with a surge of
dragonfire
.
 
I’m pretty sure I learned the
orcan
word for
sonofabitch
right then.
 
And then something that passed between them that sounded like:
‘(Roar!)
Fargar
garnah
! (
more
roars!)
Garnah
bartor
! (
more
roars!)
 
Loosely translated, I’m pretty sure it meant
“
Sonofabitch
!
 
That bitch has a weapon!”

They fell back, cursing in
orcan
and looking down in surprise at their injuries that were now oozing tarry, black orc blood.
 

“Jayne, run!” yelled Tim.

I didn’t wait around to see what else they were going to do; instead, I took Tim’s wise advice, running a wide circle around them and then hauling ass back to the meadow.

Please don’t be following me, please don’t be following me, please don’t be following me
, I chanted as I ran.
 
It didn’t take long before I was out of breath.
 
Mental note: add daily aerobics to training regimen.

Then I remembered Tim’s blood in the box I’d stuffed in my tunic belt.
 
“Double fuck!”
I yelled out into the air around me.

“Do I even want to know what that’s for?” asked Tim in a trembling voice.

“You’re still there?
 
Good.”

“Yeah, I’m still here ... hanging on for dear life.
 
I have never missed my wings so much in all my pixie years.”

“I hear ya.
 
I think we lost ‘em – but I need to go back.”