Call to Arms (War of the Fae: Book 2) (13 page)

“Yeah, it is, ain’t it?”

“You know what’s not cool?”

“No, what?”

“Mocking handicapped people.”

“What’re you talkin’ about?”

“Well, you don’t see me sending or receiving telepathic messages, do you?”

“No.”

“Well there you go.
 
Handicapped.
 
Did you
not
hear me tell you earlier that I gave a silver elf a stroke?
 
You may not want to mess with me.”
 
I smiled at him evilly.

He smiled back holding up his hands in mock surrender.
 
“Oh, ‘
scuse
me, Your Awesomeness.
 
I swear, I will never mock your inabilities again.”

“Thank you.
 
And so, for today, I have chosen not to give you a stroke.
 
But don’t piss me off ‘cuz I’m a woman and I’m allowed to change my mind.”

Finn threw his arm across my shoulders as we walked out the door.
 
“You’re alright, you know that, Jayne?”

“Yeah.
 
I’ve been told that.”

I looked over my shoulder as we were leaving to see if Becky was behind us.
 
My eye was drawn to the doorway on the other side of the room where I saw Spike standing there, his eyes still smoldering red.
 
He was staring right at me, a small smile playing on his luscious lips.

I followed Finn out the door and into the forest training grounds used by the green elves.
 

“How do you know where to go in these hallways and I still don’t?”

“Robin showed me.”

“Well, can you show me?”

“Sure.
 
Just get an idea of where you
wanna
be in your head and start
walkin
’.
 
The correct door will show itself to you.”

“Show itself?”

“Yeah, you’ll see.
 
You can try it when we go back.”

“What about when you’re out in the forest?
 
How do you know where the doors are there?”

“There are several – I don’t know all of ‘em.
 
You just go to where you remember the door
bein
’ and imagine it
bein
’ there or kind of
know
that it’s there, and it appears.”

“But you have to know it’s there already,” I verified.
 

“Yeah, and you have to know what it looks like.
 
They
ain’t
all the same.
 
That’s why
you’ve been escorted to all these places today by someone who knows where stuff is
.
 
You have to be shown the first time, otherwise, there’s no way you could imagine it.”

I nodded in appreciation of the magic.
 
“That’s a pretty cool spell, or whatever.”

“Yeah, but it ain’t perfect.
 
A Dark Fae could still penetrate it, but he or she would have to be escorted one time first.
 
So they’d have to have a mole or spy inside the compound.”

That reminded me of the voices I overheard while I was in the bathroom yesterday.

“Listen, Finn, I wanted to talk to you guys about something I overheard the other night ... speaking of spies.”

He turned to me with a questioning look on his face.
 
“You heard about a spy?”

“Well ... ”

I was cut off by the sound of a familiar voice.
 
“Welcome to the training grounds of the green elves, changeling Jayne.”

I turned and saw the face of the elf I had nicknamed Robin Hood.
 
I quickly turned and whispered in Finn’s ear,
“I’ll tell you later.”
 
I looked up at the approaching elf.
 
“Don’t tell me, let me guess.
 
Your name is Robin.”

“Yes, you are correct.”

“Is it Robin Hood, by any chance?”

The elf looked confused.
 
“No, Robin of The Green.
 
Who is this Robin Hood?
 
Is he of the Light Fae?”

Finn nudged me, giving me bug eyes.
 

“Um, no, he’s just ... never mind.
 
So, what’s on the agenda for today?”

“I have been asked to familiarize you with the work of the green elves and to determine what your skills might do to enhance or inhibit ours.”

That seemed like a strange task, the inhibit part, anyway.
 
“How, exactly, could my skills inhibit yours?”

“I was informed today that you nearly took the life of the silver elf, Céline.
 
We believe it warrants further study to determine who else you might accidentally kill when using your powers.”

Man, way to give it to me straight.

“Listen, Robin, it wasn’t on purpose, okay?
 
I was just doing what she asked me to do.”

Robin cocked his head.
 
“She asked you to kill her?”

I sighed loudly in frustration.
 
“No.
 
She didn’t ask me to
kill
her.
 
She asked me to show her my powers, so I did.”

Robin thought about that for a couple of seconds before he replied.
 
“If I make the mistake of asking the same of you, I beg that you spare my life.”

I rolled my eyes.
 
“Whatever.
 
I won’t kill you, Robin, or any of the other green elves, okay?
 
Does that make you feel better?”

“Yes, thank you.
 
Now, let’s begin.”
 

He closed his eyes all of a sudden, tilting his head back to turn his face towards the sky.
 
He took a deep breath, filling up his lungs; then he exhaled, letting it all out, slowly tipping his head back down.
 
He opened his eyes, looking right at me.
 
His pupils were bigger.
 
Blacker.
 
And it was freaky as hell.

“First, I would like to see the extent of your powers of self-preservation.”

Self-preservation?
 
What the hell
... ?

He turned to a group of elves I saw suddenly emerging from different areas of the forest.
 
There were about thirty or so of them and they all looked
very
serious, bows and arrows in hand.
 
Some of them began notching their arrows in place.

“I will give you thirty seconds to plan.
 
After that, my team will attack you.
 
Your plan should include evasive maneuvers, counter-attack or both.
 
Begin now.”

My eyes nearly fell out of my head.
 
“Are you fucking
serious?
 
They have
weapons!
 
I don’t even have my sorry little black stick!
 
I can’t outrun thirty arrows!
 
What the hell am I supposed to do
?!
”

“You have twenty-five seconds.”
 
He began stepping away.

I looked at Finn, desperation in my eyes.
 
“Finn!
 
What the hell is going on
?!
 
They’re going to
kill
me!
 
Look!
 
They have fucking
arrows!”

Finn was as shocked as I was.
 
“I ... uh ... I have no idea ... I didn’t know ... Jayne, I’m sorry ...
”
 
He
shrugged his shoulders, freaked out and at a loss for words.

“Twenty seconds,”
Robin
yelled from a short distance.

I gritted my teeth, looking at the line of elves standing resolutely behind Robin, about fifty feet from me.
 
Their faces were set in grim determination.
 

Motherfucker.
 
This had to be some sort of retribution for the Céline debacle.
 

Fine.
 
They wanted to play.
 
I could play.
 
If I was going to go down, I might as well go down fighting.
 
I went from scared to angry, just like that.
 
I was getting pretty damned tired of being forced into these life-threatening situations.

I went down on my knees, touching the green things there, digging my hands into the soil.
 
I had to try something; I just wish I knew what it was.

“Fifteen seconds.”
 
Robin was now in line with the other killer elves.

I sent desperate images and signals out to The Green.
 
I knew those arrows weren’t an illusion.
 
They weren’t going to remain with their elf archers after the zero second mark had rung out from Robin’s lips.
 
How on earth was The Green going to help me survive arrows flying faster than fighter jets at my puny weak body?
 
I couldn’t teleport out of here.
 
I couldn’t weave a spell.
 
I was a sitting duck.
 
Being an elemental sucked!

The Green usually protected me by responding to mental images I sent – I told it what I wanted with pictures and it gave it to me.
 
This time I couldn’t do that.
 
I couldn’t even imagine what The Green could do to save me.
 
Vines to tie them up?
 
Not enough time.
 
Branches to knock them over?
 
None close enough.

“Ten seconds.”

Help me!
 
I don’t know what to ask for!
 
They’re going to kill me!

I received a signal back from The Green.
 
It was calming, soothing.
 
The love had come to deliver me from this awfulness.
 

Tears came to my eyes.
 
So this is it.
 
I’d come this far, practically sacrificed my friendship with Tony to be here and put up with endless amounts of bullshit ... only to die on the forest floor, a pincushion for the arrows of the green elves.
 
At least The Green had sent me a sense of peace for my final moments.

I put my head down, my shoulders dropping in defeat.
 
There was nothing left to do.
 
Except save Finn.

“Five seconds.”

“Finn.
 
Move away.”

“But ... ” He took a step towards me, as if he was going to shield me, looking frantically at the line of arrows he was facing.

“Go!
 
There’s no use.
 
Leave me here.”

I heard his feet move away.
 

At first, I didn’t want to look at the arrows coming at me, but at the last second I changed my mind.
 
Let these fuckers look me in the eyes when they filled me full of holes.

I raised my eyes, pissed off.
 
Scared, but proud.
 
I lifted myself up onto my knees, picking my arms up and spreading them wide.

“Kiss my ass, green elves!”
I yelled.

I saw arrows being drawn back, eyes squinting as the elves took aim.

And then Robin’s voice carried across the space between us.
 
“Zero!”

Suddenly, a green glow burst up from the ground around me.
 
It came shooting out of my body, from my hands, my head,
my everything
.
 
It was coming out of every pore of my body and the ground around me.

I could barely make out the forms of the elves across the training field through the green haze that surrounded me.
 
I couldn’t hear anything except the hum of The Green, touching every part of my body and the space near me.
 
I stayed there in that field of energy for I don’t know how long.
 
Time seemed to stand still as I welcomed it in, allowing it to soothe me, fill me with its presence.
 
I wondered if this is what dying was like ... the light that near-death survivors said showed up when it was time to go to heaven.
 
I’d never heard
it described as being green, but what the heck
,
I was fae now
.
 
Maybe dying fae saw green lights.

Slowly, the light began to fade.
 
I felt the energy withdraw back into The Green.
 
I let out a pent-up breath as I realized I was once again back to my regular link with it and, happily, there were no arrows sticking out of my body.
 
I felt full, energized,
powerful
.
 
I stood, brushing myself off, paying no attention to the elves, as the wonderfulness of The Green’s energy began to dissipate little by little.
 
I felt like I could have held onto that connection forever.
 
But I had to get the hell out of Crazytown, otherwise known as the green elves’ training grounds; and to do that, I had to get rid of the floaty, hippy love feeling The Green had sent to me.
 
It made me want to stay, not leave.