Fairy Thief (20 page)

“
Hmmm,” said Tai as he stared at the three, “how apropos,” and then he collapsed on the cloud and closed his eyes.

Wo and Saffron did the same. Only Saffron lay awake and stared at the clouds that floated above. She didn’t know what Tai meant by ‘apropos’ and she decided she didn’t care.

She cleared her mind and watched the clouds, pretending they were an endless chain of ghost ships. She didn’t want to leave these clouds, didn’t want to go back to land, and would never in her life want to see a swarm of insects. There was no noise —not even the call of a bird or the rustle of the wind — even her snakes lay so quiet, she quite forgot about them.

Tai passed gas.

Saffron sat up, ramrod-straight, “Oh, COME ON!”

“
Sorry, lady, did I ruin your heavenly moment?” Tai and Wo started in a fit of giggles. Wo laughed even harder and turned on his side to curl up in the fetal position. Apparently, fairies recovered easily from near-death experiences.

Saffron groaned. “You know, you can be in the most perfect place in the world, and if you’re not with just the right company, that place can get real ugly, real fast!”

Tai let another one rip.

Saffron ground her teeth. She held her breath and counted to ten. Gross, vile, little things. “Hey! Be quiet a minute, listen — why did that happen with those insects? There were so many of them! God, they were trying to crawl into our heads! Why were you two so afraid?” Her breathing and her temper were even now, as she conducted wisps of cloud with her hands. One of the snakes seemed to want to cuddle against her cheek, so she let it.

Tai drilled his finger into his ear to make sure there wasn’t a bug in there.

Wo sat up. “Well, now we know why no magic is used in that realm – it attracted the insects. Uck.”

Tai snorted. “Yeah, they wanted to make a meal of us, of our essence. They could’ve destroyed us, you know. Never heard of such a thing! He gave Orji a sad look. “Nothing like the power of wings to deliver you!” He held his hand out to Wo for a high-five. “Good job, dude.” He turned his head to the sun, closed his eyes, and let the clouds roll under him and massage his back.

“
Well, how did they find us anyway? I’ve never seen anything like
that
in my entire life either!” Saffron rolled over on her side and stared at Markis.

“
What…
that?”
Wo thrust a lazy hand out. Pshaw. “That was nothing, really. Just something cooked up by the inhabitants to counter fairy magic. An alarm system, a counter-curse, a warning. Doesn’t take much to mobilize all of the insects within a hundred-mile radius. Bugs don’t exactly have a strong individual will, you know. Quite the contrary — their group-mind-existence makes them perfect for a curse such as that. I’ll have to remember that. Very ingenious.”

More of the snakes on Saffron’s head began to stir, and like children – one is sweet, but several are whiny – they began to hiss, sway, and pull her head around. “Yeah, man, and you ARE going to fix this, too!” Saffron pointed to her head in disgust.

Tai giggled, eyes still closed. “You so deserved
that!”

Behind the twins, on the slowly undulating mass of white, Orji moaned. “What kind of white-out blazing hell am I in?” He opened his eyes and squinted at Saffron. Then did a double-take. He pulled his head back a little and winced. “My worst fears
have
been realized; I’m
in hell and the devil herself has come to destroy me.” His eyes were weary — he was truly afraid of Saffron and her snaky head. He was
very
afraid of the pain in his ribs that caused his breath to be short and wheezy. He was
very
afraid because he couldn’t feel either arm or one of his legs. The other leg burned as if it were frying in a pan, and his head throbbed so loudly he could barely hear anything else. He couldn’t move. He tried to move his arm and a sudden, high-pitched scream blew out of his mouth.

His obvious pain set Saffron off, and she began to cry again. “Oh, you morons, please — please help him.”

Tai and Wo flew to Orji’s side. “Now that he’s awake, we can.” Tai muttered.

“
We’ll see later if you would actually call what we’re about to do, ‘helping’.” Wo whispered.

Orji’s eyes bugged out. The skin surrounding his eyes pulled back, revealing a large amount of white.

Saffron wanted to hold his hand, but was too frightened. What if he died? She couldn’t take it. Didn’t even want to be there. She wrapped her arms around her knees and looked away from him.

“
Start with an arm,” Tai muttered, “you go first.”

“
Thanks a lot.” Wo frowned.

Tai shrugged his shoulders and fell silent.

Wo placed his hand on Orji’s arm, then yanked it back as if it burned. “Shouldn’t we place him under a spell? Something to comfort him so he doesn’t even know what’s going on? That’s what they do in hospitals.”

“
Dude, if you want to mess with his mind, go ahead. I’m not gonna even
go there.”

Wo scratched his chin roughly and squinted hard in thought. Once again, he took hold of Orji’s arm and began to mutter soft words.

Saffron could hardly hear him, but she knew he wasn’t speaking English. He wasn’t even speaking
Earth
as far as she could tell. The words were more fluid, as if a river of of sound ran from his mouth and passed under a full moon and over rocks of diamond before reaching their goal. She was amazed to be thinking such a thing, but these were the thoughts that filled her head as the alien words trickled on, syllables she couldn’t repeat, not even one, not if she tried. She relaxed, sat still, and watched Wo work. She was lulled into a meditative state, seduced by his every utterance, pause, and sigh.

It took a very long time.

When Wo was done, Tai sat back in exhaustion and relief. “Wow, man, you did it. You totally did it all on your own.”

Though Wo looked pitifully fatigued, a pink glow suffused his cheeks and a bashful smile spread across his lips. Pride brimmed in his eyes. “Thanks.”

“
How do you feel, Orji?” Saffron didn’t look directly into eyes.

He sat up slowly. “Okay, I guess.” He looked at the blue sky and patted the clouds that cushioned him, grinning like a small child atop a plume of cotton candy. He grinned at Wo. “Thanks.”

Wo knew he meant ‘thanks’ for everything — for flight, for lounging on clouds, and for fixing him. He ducked his head and smiled back. He rubbed Orji’s shoulder.

“
Dude, we can’t have that happening again. We’re on a clock here.” Tai spoke quietly as he patted the pocket that held the golden clock.

“
Dude,” Orji intoned awkwardly, as if he didn’t feel comfortable with the title, “We can’t have that happening again because…that
hurts!
” Orji walked around feeling himself, running his hands over the length of his body, up and down his arms and legs, as if to be sure everything was back in line.

“
Great!” Tai stood and rubbed his hands together. “See those two over there? That’s Saffron’s body and the body of her friend, that chap who so unluckily found himself stolen. He’s our mission. Find his soul, put it back in his body, end of job.”

Tai put his hands on his hips and looked at Orji until Orji looked back. “And what’ll you be getting out of it, hmm?”

They both turned around when Saffron said, “His name is Markis.”

Tai looked confused and forgot about his question to Orji. Orji gave a little smile to Saffron and nodded as he pointed down. “Let’s go, then.”

“
Right,” said Tai, “Now, we need you to go lay down with the other bodies so we can draw your soul from your flesh.” He gave Orji a hundred-watt grin.

“
Okay…I guess,” Orji replied uneasily. He strode to the bodies and glanced down at them, momentarily feeling the same way Saffron had of laying herself out at her own funeral. He ignored his sudden queasiness. After all, the little guys had just saved his life, had just healed his entire body quite nicely. He had to show them a bit of faith. He lay down and closed his eyes.

Tai began. He tried to pull Orji’s soul, but it wouldn’t come. Wo moved alongside to help. They tried together — again and again — but Orji wouldn’t lift. Tai remained unusually calm and tried a few more times. To no avail.

“
Hmm,” Saffron mused as she strolled over, “
I’m
able to do it relatively easily.” Her superior air was abundant and annoying.

“
That’s because,” Tai turned slowly towards Saffron and delivered the blow that would shut her up for awhile, “Your
will
is so
weak….
your self-preservation is so defunct….” He narrowed his large black-pupil eyes at her. His wings pumped like he was pumping his fist.

She walked away, blushing from ear to ear.

Finally, Orji was able to clear his mind completely, give into the fairies’ call, and separate himself from his body. “Hey….whoooeee!....hey, that tickles.”

Saffron wrinkled her nose and looked over her shoulder at the newly separated soul. From the noises he was making it sounded like Orji was having a one-man orgy.

Tai and Wo chuckled over Orji, as if he were their child discovering things for the first time. He made his wounds vanish — the trifling scratches that remained — and in the end he looked sharp and all cleaned up. “Incredible! I just imagined my arm was clear of scrapes and BAM! It felt better! It really did! Then, kapow! kapow! kapow! —bruises, gone, gone and gone! Incredible!”

Saffron listened to his glee and his shouts of joy. She wanted to chuck him the bird. How come she
still
couldn’t keep the sun from blinding her? Why was it so easy for Orji to control his physical memories? Why was her will
so weak?
As the hours wore on, her black mood intensified. She didn’t find any fun in the outfitting Wo proposed they do.

“
Let’s do the magic we need up here, so we can return to the cave — we need that portal.” Wo clapped his hands.

“
Fine with me. Who cares if we can’t use magic?” Tai shrugged most assuredly. “I’m excited! This will be like a
real
adventure. We’ll have to be creative, that’s all. Put it this way, if humans can live more than a day without magic, we sure as hell can clear a couple of realms.”

Saffron shot him a dirty look. “Then why do you all want to become human if you think we’re so stupid.”

Tai sneered back. “It’s like wanting to be reborn a rock, you know? To be able to live a life with little-to-no brain capacity. Like vegging out.”

Saffron ‘Yughhhed’ in disgust. She wouldn’t talk while they were choosing clothes for themselves, so Orji ordered up her garments instead.

He played with her like a doll. First he had her snakes removed and replaced with her own beautiful, lush red waves. “Her hair’s too short – make it long!” Then he commanded Wo to zap different items on her — outrageous things — hoping to bring a smile to her scowling face. He didn’t know why she should look so angry and sad at the same time. He couldn’t bring her around, so he became serious and chose items he thought she could really use while they “roughed it” in the upcoming realms.

He insisted on leather pants, confirming out loud that they would wear well in rough terrain and be good camouflage. Secretly he loved how they hugged her rear-end, as if they were her own second skin. He ordered a dark-green, gauzy tunic that was fitted to her every curve – again, the green would help camouflage, and the light gauze for fewer encumbrances. He had a big smile on his face now. She looked like a girl from his realm. Like a luscious treat of a girl – with a bad attitude.

Saffron finally spoke. Actually, she let out a strangled scream and a slew of vicious swears as hers arms flew up to cover her chest. Tai had zapped the tunic in place and nothing else. Saffron looked down to find, most horrifying, her breasts could be seen clearly through the sheer fabric. “What are you doing?” she screamed at Tai.

Orji flinched involuntarily and snapped his eyes from Saffron, to Tai, to Wo. “What? What?! What’s going on? What’s the matter, Saffron?”

“
You
know
what’s the matter,” she spat as tears of dreadful humiliation formed in her eyes.

Orji searched Tai and Wo again, who remained quiet. “Miss, I really don’t know what the problem is.” He felt bad for her, he really did. He could see her shame, but didn’t understand it and was starting to feel irritated by her accusing eyes. “Well, that’s enough of that. You…” he pointed at Wo, “tell me right now, what is wrong here?”