Faery Worlds - Six Complete Novels (44 page)

She took a step back, releasing his arm.

Tony stood still for a second as I approached and then looked up, turning his head to face me. His eyes were open, but I saw no recognition in them when he looked me. Tony turned and moved towards the hag again, his arms reaching for her waist in a bid to finish their disgusting business together.

"
Huh-uh
, Tony Baloney, not so fast." I reached out and gripped his shoulder, pulling him back away from her.

He put up little resistance.

The hag backed farther away from me, her eyes not on the axe but on Blackie.

She seemed to be worried about it, so I held it up. "You want a taste of Blackie? Well then,
bring it,
bitch."

The hag raised her chin, staring at me malevolently, growling out in her rusty, acidic voice, "You know nothing of what you do, of what you have. I can see it in your eyes."

"Look again, hag." I brandished Blackie in front of me. "Come on, put your money where your mouth is, old lady. Don't think for one second that I won't stab this motherfucker right in your ugly, cloudy, beady-ass eye. Or maybe I should go for the good one!" I adjusted the point of my stick a smidge to the right.

The hag considered me for a moment and then looked at Tony.

"Darling," she simpered, "please ... help me. She's going to hurt me." She turned back to me, grinning maliciously.

I looked at her with disgust. Like Tony was going to fall for that shit. She was about as far from a kindly cookie-baking grandma as someone could possibly be.

I felt Tony's hand on my shoulder.

"Tony ... "

I never got the rest of my sentence out. Tony pushed me to the ground, quickly grabbing the axe that fell from my hand. He stood over me, a rage like I've never seen before, blazing in his eyes.

"Leave her alone, Jayne. She's
mine."

I felt the vomit rise up in my throat. I had to swallow hard to make it go down and stay there. My ears were hot and ringing. What the hell was going on? Tony was hypnotized or something. She'd put a spell on his stupid ass.
For chrissake ... as if I didn't have enough problems already.

"Tony! She's an old hag! She's hypnotized you or something! Come on, it's me ... Jayne, your best friend!" I searched his face desperately, but there was nothing there. Tony was somewhere far, far away. And this guy in front of me? I had no idea who he was. Some necrophiliac apparently, because that hag looked like a walking corpse, and I'm pretty sure it was lust I had seen in his eyes earlier.

"Hag?" he said, confused. He shook his head, smiling condescendingly. "Those who are blind cannot see." He gestured to the woman. "She's the most beautiful girl who ever walked this earth. You remember her, Jayne, don't you? She was with us at the warehouse." He turned to the old woman. "Samantha, come over here and say hello to Jayne."

Chapter Eighteen

"Samantha?
No friggin' way, Tony, that is
not
Samantha." I stood up, shaking my head from side to side, backing away from both of them. I wasn't sure exactly what was going on here, other than the fact that Tony had been mind-fucked, but there was no way in hell Samantha, or whoever that was, was gonna suck face with my best friend. Over my dead body.

Tony stood in front of me, his axe hanging at his side. "Jayne, you're just confused. Samantha came back for us." He turned his head to look at the hag again. "She came back for
me."
His face was shining with deranged happiness.

The hag walked up to resume her place next to Tony, putting her hand on his arm. He rubbed her forearm and leaned down, preparing to kiss her again.

I couldn't take it. Maybe I was going to be cursed or whatever by the hag, but I was not going to let that kiss happen. I just hoped that when this was over, I'd get my Tony back - the real Tony, not the bewitched, necrophiliac Tony. I ran as fast as I could at the hag, ready to knock her antiquated ass to the ground.

She saw me coming and readied herself for my attack.

Tony was still slightly mesmerized, looking down at his new girlfriend, so at least for this brief moment I only had one battle to fight.

I had Blackie in my fist, held out in front of me, as I rushed forward. The point wasn't out because it was too awkward to carry like that when I was running, plus I wasn't totally comfortable with stabbing her. She was disgusting and she had cursed my friend, but she
was
an old lady after all.

The hag raised her left hand, her palm facing in my direction. As we collided, the fist holding Blackie was the first thing that came into contact with her body. The side of the stick's tip grazed her shoulder, emitting a hissing sound and the acrid smell of sulfur. A split second later, a blast of some horrible black energy erupted from her hand and hit me smack in the chest, sending me flying backwards.

I should have landed on my ass in the middle of some brambles, but instead I found myself in a pile of leafy limbs. Three trees standing witness to our battle had interlocked their branches, creating a net of sorts. I was caught inside it, but was released as soon as it had stopped my backward movement.

I sent out a vibe of gratitude. It felt good to know that at least The Green was on my side. I had a feeling I was going to need some allies, after having seen and felt that black powerful whatever-it-was coming out of her hand. My chest felt cold and
bleak
where it had made contact. That was one unhappy dose of magic she had going on there.

Tony watched what was happening, confusion marring his features. He looked from the hag, to me, and back again. "Jayne?"

"Don't look at her! Look at me!
Samantha
. Remember, darling?"

Tony's face broke out in smiles again. "Hello, Samantha. What are you doing to Jayne?" He didn't seem mad about the fact that she'd just blasted me with some sick-ass black lightning - just confused.

"Jayne is bad, Tony. She's trying to hurt me. You need to stop her."

"Jayne, is that true?"

"STOP HER!" the hag yelled, raising her hand again.

Tony lifted his axe and came towards me, a very determined look on his face.

Trees, don't fail me now
, was all I could think. I played pictures through my mind as I grabbed hold of the nearest branches. I prayed that the connection I had with one tree could somehow be communicated to the others. All I had without them was that fucking black stick.

Tony was swinging his horrible axe, blue glowing pathways cutting through the air, and the humming sound rising to a crescendo that could only mean one thing: that axe was one bad motherfucker of a weapon, and if it hit me, it was going to be lights out.

Everything happened so fast, it took me a few moments to remember exactly how it had gone down. As Tony approached, the tree that had branches above his head bent down, wood popping and snapping with the effort. A wall of pine needles and leaves smashed into Tony's face, loosening his grip on the axe. The weapon fell to the ground and a vine of ivy raced across the forest floor, wrapping its tendrils around the axe and pulling it away, deep into the woods. I lost sight of it within seconds.

Luckily, so did Tony.

While Tony was wrapped up in battling leaves and branches, I slipped around the side and faced off with the hag.

"You think you're so clever, girl, with your tree friends. We'll see how badly they want to help you when they feel my fire!"

She held her palm up and blasted the tree next to me, the one interfering in Tony's struggle to get untangled. The potent stench of sulfur filled the air again, immediately followed by the smell of burning wood. I felt the pain of the tree - not as my own pain, but as echoes of sadness and disintegration. It was one of the most horrible sensations I'd ever experienced. I just wanted it to stop.

"Don't!"
I yelled, desperation and anger coloring my voice.

The hag laughed maniacally and sent another cruel blast to the tree.

I could feel its strength waning. The ache of unshed tears jumped to my throat. If the tree continued to help me, she was going to destroy it - demolish its soul. I realized then that this is what she did; this is what made her happy, her reason for being. She thrived on the pain of others. As the tree suffered, she grew stronger.

This shit had to stop.
Now.

I charged her, Blackie held out in front of me, point first –
fuck the old lady pity card
. She wanted to play rough, so she was going to have to deal with my new take-no-prisoners plan.

She raised her palm to stop me, but a quick thought-message from me asking a nearby vine to wrap itself around the hag's wrist and pull, sent her blast wide. I flinched as it hit a tree behind me, but it was the last minute distraction that I needed.

I didn't stop, even when I was upon her. I ran as hard as I could, ramming my pointed stick into her chest, refusing to let go even as I felt it sink into her bag of decrepit, brittle bones. She screamed, the unholy shriek rising higher and higher, hurting my ears with its ugliness.

A deep green glow burst from her chest where my stick had penetrated her flesh, blazing up and down to fully consume her. It touched my hand, the one that was still gripping the stick, but I felt nothing.

No blood came from her wound; instead, a blackness seeped out and spread slowly across the forest floor, causing whatever it touched to quickly move out of its way or shrivel up, turn gray, and die.

I danced my feet out of the way to keep the molten evil from touching my Converse sneakers.

The hag sank down, grabbing hold of my wrist and staring at me with her one good eye. "Youuuu ... giiiirrrlllll ... Motherrrr ... " A single tear welled up in each of her eyes, and for a brief moment - so quickly I thought I was probably imagining it - I saw another face there ... a younger one ... a beautiful one. But then the hag was there again. A smoking blackness, reeking of rotten chemicals.

I let go of the stick, and the defeated hag crumpled to the ground. The pitch-blackness that had seeped out of her, returned quickly, covering her body and boiling up over it.

I stepped back, grabbing my sweet Tony and pulling him along with me. He stumbled behind, saying nothing. When we were a few safe feet away, we stopped and stared at the mass of writhing blackness. I heard what sounded like the beating of wings and a chorus of deep, otherworldly evil screams that I knew I would experience in my nightmares for the rest of my life.

And then there was a flash of bright green light and a loud
POP!
... and it was all over.

The hag was gone and my stick lay on the ground, small and black, still pointed on the end, and no longer glowing green or covered in the hag's heinous awfulness. It was as if the battle had never happened, except that in the place where the hag had been swallowed up by the blackness, a piece of scorched earth remained. I thought about covering it up with dirt, but then something made me decide not to.

Something terrible had happened here. As awful as she had been, she'd had some sort of life in her - and I had taken it. The bitch had to die; I knew that, rationally speaking. But when I thought back to that momentary vision of her, the one that had appeared just before her evil light was finally snuffed out, I thought maybe she hadn't always been a hag. Maybe, a long time ago, she had been a different person. Maybe even somebody Tony could have loved - someone I'd even let him make out with.

I looked at Tony. He was staring at the black spot on the ground, not saying anything.

"Tony? You okay?" I wasn't sure if my old Tony was back, or if I was going to be stuck with Zombie Tony for the rest of my life.

He shook his head slowly from side to side.

My guts clenched and I felt sick again.
Please God, let me have my Tony back.

"I'm not really sure what just happened, Jayne. I came down from the tree, and I saw this beautiful girl. She looked like Samantha. She was here ... and then ... I don't know. I don't remember what happened after that." He looked up at me with tears glistening in his eyes. "But I remember being really angry at you and coming after you with that axe. And I don't know why I would ever do that, Jayne. It's killing me!"

He was crying for real now, not just tears but girly sobbing too.

I went to him and hugged him fiercely for a moment before pulling away and grabbing him firmly by the shoulders. The kid needed some tough love right now, and he'd caught me at a good time. I'd just kicked a crone's ass and burned her to smithereens. I wasn't feeling overly tenderhearted right at that moment.

"Listen, ya big baby ... you fell in love with an enchanted hag who tricked you and convinced you I was the bad guy. Luckily, you suck at hurting people and I easily kicked both your asses with the help of my friends, the trees and vines." I sent them a silent message of gratitude through my feet on the forest floor and was rewarded with a shower of leaves and evergreen needles.