Blood of Half Gods (12 page)

You know what the really strange thing is?  They are so cute.  Okay, cute is a mild word.  Kallen is unbelievably hot, but these guys are a really close second.  Their bodies are pretty much perfect; which I can tell because they don’t have any shirts on, just pants.  They’re not like the Fairies in looks.  They don’t have black hair, and I bet they don’t all have green eyes, but it’s too dark and I’m too far away to tell.  They are blond, dark haired and one has red hair, I think.  And each one is drop dead gorgeous.  It’s like your favorite movie star is blown up to twice his dimensions.  I’m pretty sure that right now, though, I should be paying much more attention to the menacing looks on their faces than how good looking they are. 

“Who are you?” the largest giant asks.  He’s at least twelve feet tall with shoulder length blonde hair that looks like spun silk.  “How do you move about so?”

“She is Xandra, daughter of King Dagda,” Kallen says, with a lot more confidence and nonchalance in his voice than I could manage at the moment.

“The King has no daughter,” blondie says, taking a couple of steps in our direction.  “I demand you tell me who you are or I will…” Oh, I don’t think I want to repeat what he just said.  But I’ll give it a ten in both the creativity and the ‘I didn’t think that was physically possible but I bet you could pull it off’ categories.

I wonder how cowardly it would be to pop us back up on the rock.  I don’t think they could reach us up there.  That wouldn’t do much for Dagda’s cause, though, if I desecrated their sacred landmark twice in five minutes.  I guess I’ll try honesty.  “I am his daughter.  He didn’t tell you about me because he was planning to kill me just a short time ago.  We’ve worked all that out, and now I’m Princess.”  Listen to my mouth rambling.  Sure wish I could find the on/off switch for it.

Blondie comes forward again.  There only about twenty feet between us now.  If Kallen didn’t have such a tight grip on my hand, I would have made the distance fifty feet again.  “Perhaps he sent you to us to finish the job for him.”

No matter how many times it happens, you never get used to perfect strangers wanting you dead.  “No, I don’t think that’s it.”

“How did you move like that,” he demands.  He’s shortened the distance between us again.  If he laid down right now, his head would be touching our feet. 

“It’s one of the weird powers I have as a Witch Fairy.”  I don’t like to advertise the Angel part.  No one’s supposed to know.  Other than the ten or fifteen people who already do.  And whoever else they’ve told.  Wow, I’m really bad at keeping secrets.

“You are a Witch?” the Giant asks.  Then he laughs.  Not the soft pealing laugh of Angels, or the normal, human-like laugh of Fairies.  Nope.  Giant laughter sounds like fifty or sixty donkeys in a small room trying to stomp on a bunch of cats as they voice their displeasure at being so cramped.  “Your magic will have no effect on us.”

Yeah, that’s what I’m afraid of.  “She is a Witch Fairy,” Kallen interjects.  “A species of magical creature you have never met the likes of.  Her magic is amplified to the power of a thousand.”

My boyfriend just referred to me as being part of a different species than him.  A different
species
.  Oh, we are so having a discussion about this.  Right after we keep the Giants from killing us.

“One Witch or a thousand, her magic will have no effect on us.”  Blondie laughs again.  That laugh brings his gorgeous rating down from a ten to an eight, easily.  His personality leaves a bit to be desired, as well.  That brings him down to a five.  I’m about to say something to that effect, when a familiar dancing light shines in front of me.  I think the situation is about to go from awful to horrific.

“You better watch it, you big oaf.  That’s my friend you’re talking to.” 

The Giant and his friends jump back.  Accusation clear in his voice, blondie says, “What is this trickery, Witch?”

“Nixie,” I say just above a whisper.  “Knock it off, you’re not helping.”

“But, he’s being mean to you.  And you’re way stronger than him or any of them.  I know because I’ve been watching them ever since I arrived yesterday.  Your mode of transportation is very slow, by the way.”

I sigh.  “We had some technical difficulties.”

“Why do you speak to this light as if it is sentient?  We will not be fooled by your fraudulence.”

“Oh, shut up, will you?  We’re trying to have a conversation here,” Nixie snaps.  Nixie is the lightness that I saved from the Shadow realm, and from exorcism.  She chose to stay in this realm in the form she’s in.  She misses having a body, but she’s not willing to start as a grasshopper or something to build her soul back up.  So, she can be heard, but not seen.  A couple of days ago, we spent hours throwing possible names out until she settled on Nixie.

“You’re not helping,” I hiss through my teeth.

“Oh, you worry too much.  They’re afraid of me because they think I’m evil, look.”  She dances towards them, and sure enough, the Giants jump back.  I guess Isla and Dagda weren’t exaggerating about the superstition of the Giants when it comes to spirits.

“Nixie, knock it off,” Kallen says sternly.

“Fine,” she says in a pouty voice.

“Hey, how come you listen to him but not me?”

Her voice is full of humor when she says, “Because I don’t want to wrap myself around your body.  Just his.”

Now, I’m annoyed.  “You know, it’s not too late for me to exorcise you.”

“Exorcism?  What manner of evil have you brought among us?”  Oops, I almost forgot about the Giants.  Unbelievable, I know.

“She’s not evil.  She’s just a soul remnant that has evolved to sentient status without a body.”  From the looks on their faces, they seem torn between believing what I said and forgetting about their superstition enough to come over and rip my head off.

Fortunately, Nixie finally does what we said.  Well, what Kallen said, anyway.  She swings in a path behind us, shining on the sand until we can’t see her anymore.

What I didn’t realize, was just how much the Giant’s fear of Nixie was keeping them at bay.  In what seems like a nanosecond, but was probably less, the Giants have surged upon us.  Blondie picks me up by my neck, yes, my
neck
, just like in the movies and Fairy tales, and starts shaking me.  “Who are you?” he demands.

Anger is the best cure in the world for fear.  There is no way he is going to treat me like this.  But, if I’m going to do anything, I’d better hurry.  I think my face is turning blue.  Pulling magic, more than I’ve pulled in a while, I let it shoot through me and into him.  And I keep pulling.  And I pull some more.  I get to watch his face turn from anger, to confusion, to ‘oh my god, she actually
can
hurt me.’  Within seconds, I am on the ground gasping for breath.  At least I’m not on the ground writhing in pain like Blondie.  I’m pretty close, though. 

The Giant that has ahold of Kallen is struggling against Kallen’s magic, but ultimately, Kallen wins just as I am about to help him.  The red haired Giant lets him go and drops to his knees.  He’s not in quite as much pain as Blondie, but he’s in enough pain to admit defeat.

“You are not a Witch,” a dark haired Giant says.  He’s a lot shorter than the rest.  He’s probably closer to nine feet tall, at the most.  What he doesn’t have in height, though, he makes up for in muscle.  He has really pretty blue eyes, too, by the way, but I digress.  He’s also keeping his distance from both me and Kallen.  Now that I think about it, he was hanging back and just observing when the other Giants were trying to be threatening.

“You’re right,” I say when I have enough oxygen back in my lungs to talk.  “I’m not a Witch.  I’m a Witch Fairy.  There’s a huge difference.”

Looking down at his squirmy friends, he says, “So I can see.  Release them so that we may have a more civil conversation than the last.”

I eye him for a moment until I decide he’s telling the truth.  I probably shouldn’t, but for some reason, I trust him.  And no, it’s not the blue eyes doing it.

I pull my magic back, and Blondie’s humongous frame stops acting like a snake on hot asphalt.  With some reluctance, Kallen draws his back, as well.  He gives me a ‘you better know what you’re doing look.’  I give him a reassuring nod, but he still doesn’t seem convinced.

“Are you truly the King’s daughter?” the Giant with blue eyes asks.

Okay, this is ridiculous.  I can’t keep calling them by their distinguishing characteristics.  “Yes, and my name is Xandra.  What’s yours?”

He tilts his head.  “You have the look of a Fairy, but not the tongue of one.”

For a minute, I think he’s talking about my actual tongue.  Then, it hits me that this is another case of being called out by the grammar police.  “Yeah, I know.  I didn’t grow up here and we use contractions where I’m from.”

He nods.  “That explains that.  Now, perhaps you can explain to us why you are here, how you control spirits and why you chose to come upon us as you did.”

Wow, he’s pretty reasonable for a Giant.  He doesn’t look angry or anything.  More curious, really.  “You still didn’t tell me who you are.”

He inclines his head again.  “My apologies, I am Quinn, Chief of the Devas tribe.”

Ah, that’s why he’s a bit more diplomatic than his buddies.  “Nice to meet you,” I say lamely.  Kallen just nods.  Maybe I should introduce him.  “This is Kallen, the King’s nephew.”

Quinn chuckles.  He doesn’t have the same donkey/cat laugh as Blondie did.  “I did not realize our quest for help would become such a family affair.”

A strong wind chooses now to blow through, causing chills to run up and down my arms under my sweater.  “Um, is there someplace warmer we can talk?” I ask, rubbing my arms against the sudden cold.

He hesitates for a few heart beats as he gives me an assessing look, and then says, “Of course.  I assume we have a truce for the moment?”

It takes a minute for that to make sense.  “Oh, you mean my magic?  Yes, I’ll keep it in check.”  I look over at Kallen who has the strangest look on his face.  “You will, too, right?”

“Yes,” he says, his eyes trying to bore holes into Quinn.  He’s taking the whole attempted strangulation by Giant thing a lot harder than I am.  Another sentence I would never have thought I would utter in my life.  Yet now, it seems like a perfectly normal thing to roll off my tongue.

Quinn’s mouth turns up in a smirk on one side.  “Then I invite you to my home.  My staff will provide you with something warm to drink.”  The way he says that implies that he thinks we’re weak for being cold.  Maybe if I had about a hundred gallons of warm blood in my body like him, I’d stay warmer, too.  My ten pints gets chilly easily.

“Xandra, the appropriate protocol is to wait for the King,” Kallen says pointedly.  I think he’s trying to remind me of what Dagda said about my diplomacy.

I sigh and look back at Quinn.  “He’s right.  We should wait for Dagda before we start talking about anything.  I don’t tend to be very tactful.”

Quinn chuckles.  “Honesty before tact has always been my motto.  I have the impression that you are ever eager to have your honest opinion heard.”

Was I just insulted?  I think I was, but I’m not sure enough to merit insulting him back.  So, I go with, “Sometimes.”

“Xandra, you are charming.  Come, we will discuss the weather until your father arrives.”  He holds his hand out to me.  His hand that could palm my head and still pick up a basketball.  At best, I could wrap my hand around his finger.

“This is not wise,” Kallen says between clenched teeth.  “The King will be angry.”

“Oh, please, like I ever care if Dagda’s angry or not.”  Oops, my lips probably shouldn’t have let those words escape.

Quinn raises a brow.  “You and your father often disagree?”

I shrug as my cheeks turn a bright pink.  “We didn’t get off to the best start.”

Out of the blue, he asks, “Are you truly from another realm?”

I nod.  “I’m from what you guys call the Cowan realm.  I haven’t been here for very long.”

Surprise washes over his face, but he masks it quickly.  “Then your opinions have not been molded with bias.  A rare quality.  You also seem comfortable with having an opinion that differs from the King.  I believe that you would make an excellent arbitrator during our discussions.”

Arbitrator?  Me?  “Um, remember what I said about not being very tactful?  I wasn’t kidding.  Sometimes, inappropriate words jump out of my mouth like my tongue is a diving board and the conversation is a swimming pool.  I’m often rude and sarcastic.”  Wow, I’m creating quite the resume for myself.  I should just shorten it to ‘me no speak good.’

“And honest.”  Quinn stares at me and Kallen for a moment.  Finally, he says, “It is decided.  Under our charter with the King, we are allowed to ask for an arbitrator and I am officially requesting you.”

My mouth drops open.  Does he want his world to collapse?  “I’m pretty sure that my mouth would take it upon itself to say any number of things that could incite civil war between the tribes.  You do not want me to do that, do you?”

He chuckles again.  “That is not the goal that has been set forth, no.”  His face sobers now.  “Trust me when I say there is nothing you can do to make the civil unrest worse.”

“Wanna bet,” I grumble under my breath.