Clash of the Otherworlds: Book 1, After the Fall (14 page)

My eyes were immediately drawn to a glow that began off to my left, casting a light over the quickly darkening night and the especially black place under the branches of the mighty oak.

I stepped back a few paces, not quite trusting what I was seeing and not sure it wasn't more bad news to add to my already messed up I've-brought-a-demon-to-visit-from-the-Underworld evening, which was only slightly worse than my I-married-an-arrogant-ahole-gnomebutt day.

Garrett did the opposite, moving closer to the light until he was standing at the edge of it.  "Shayla?" he asked in a tentative voice, reaching his hand up to touch the light.

The vision of a woman began to appear, misty at first, but quickly taking a more solid form.  She was all white and then not, colors of her clothing and hair coming into focus.  Ten seconds later, there she was, standing in front of us: a girl or a woman -I couldn't tell her age- not much taller than me, perhaps even the exact same size as me, with the same color hair, wearing brown leather pants and a linen tunic of a similar shade that was covered in plates of metal held together with leather straps.  She had a dragon fang weapon strapped to her right leg and a sword at her left hip.  The only thing that stopped her from looking like the sister I never had was the set of immense wings that were attached to her back, bright white and completely unblemished in any way.  They stood out in stark contrast to her warrior garb, which looked like it had made it through more than a few battles with some small dents in the metal parts and some spots on the pants that were so worn, the leather had gone shiny, mostly on her inner thighs and near where her weapons lay.

I smiled, unable to stop myself.  "Damn, Shayla.  You sure know how to make a badass entrance."

She looked at me and gave me a cocky grin.  "Is there any other kind?"

She turned to Garrett and lost her smile.  "Hello, incubus.  Or should I say ... vampire?"

He nodded once.  "Vampire would be the correct term for me these days.  But not for long."

She lifted an eyebrow.  "You've managed to earn another lifetime, eh?  Who'd you have to sell out for that privilege?"

Garrett sighed heavily.  "You know it doesn't work that way.  Stop being bitter; it doesn't suit you."

Shayla rolled her eyes and turned away from Garrett to face me.  "Dearest Jayne.  You have brought me down from the Overworld.  Now what, pray tell, are you going to do with me?"

My head started moving from side to side of its own accord.  "I'm sorry.  I'm having a hard time wrapping my brain around the fact that I'm standing under my mother's tree with a demon and an angel who probably shouldn't be here.  I have a feeling I'm going to be in the biggest trouble of my entire
life
."  I was getting indigestion from the thought of the council coming down on me in front of the whole fae community.  Only this time, it would be the Light and the Dark fae councils and the Light and the Dark fae groups all together.  Hundreds of fae to stand witness to my stupidity and shame.  Ben was not kidding when he called my screw-ups epic.  This one was going to follow me around forever.  Aidan and his dangling were-man parts in the council meeting had nothing on me.

I dropped my head into my hands, trying to get a grip on myself.

"Now look what you've done," said Garrett, coming over to stand next to me.  "You've made her cry.  Do you always have to be so cruel?"  He patted me on the shoulder awkwardly.  "There, there.  It will be alright."

Shayla came over to my other side.  "You must be joking.  You are the
king
of cruel, as evidenced by the fact that you ended up where you did and I ended up where I did after the final battle."

"Pish posh.  A mere accounting error."

"Ha!  Accounting errors, my backside.  Errors are never made, as you well know."

"Hey!" I yelled, lifting my face out of my hands.  "I'm trying to work myself into a full-on breakdown here, and your bickering is making it impossible.  Do you mind?"  I frowned at both of them, trying to channel Dardennes' shame-inducing power into my expression.

Shayla studied my face for a moment before saying, "Well done, Jayne.  I very nearly felt guilty over that one."

Garrett nodded.  "Quite right, quite right.  Well-played.  Please, continue with your breakdown.  I shall wait until you are through before I finish berating the heartless silver elf over there."

"I'm no silver elf anymore," Shayla said proudly.

"What are you, exactly?" I asked, now too curious to focus on feeling sorry for myself.

She shrugged modestly.  "I am of the Third Order, Silver House."

"Well, well," said Garrett before I could react, "nicely played, Shayla.  Color me impressed."

She smiled, obviously proud of herself.  "It has been fun."

"I'll say," responded Garrett, smiling at her and shaking his head in respect.

"What's that mean?" I asked.  "Silver House.  That's what Chase said when he was here."  I swallowed the lump in my throat and beat down the feelings of jealousy that reached up to strangle me from the inside as I thought about Shayla being with him when I couldn't be.

"The Overworld is arranged in houses and in each house are levels of ... angels I guess you would call them."

"Fae like you ... with wings and all," I confirmed.

"Yes, although we are not fae with wings.  We are guardians, but yes, you have the idea."

"Who are you guardian-ing?"

"Who did we used to be guardians to, you mean?  Well, Fae, certain humans.  Whoever is in the Here and Now needing it."  Shayla turned to Garrett.  "So you got here thanks to Maggie playing in her kitchen again.  Lucky you."

He shrugged.  "I have not yet decided whether it is a lucky thing or a very unlucky one.  I guess we shall see."  He stared at Shayla so hard, I knew there were layers of meaning there, but without their story I had no idea of knowing what those secrets were.

"So how do you two know each other?" I asked them both, ignoring for a moment that Shayla had suggested angels no longer acted as guardians.

Neither responded.

"Hello?  Anyone want to confess, or do I have to beat it out of you?"

Shayla turned to me.  "Don't make threats you cannot support."  Her hand shifted to the butt of her dragon-fang weapon.

"Okay.  Let me amend my threat, then.  Confess or I'll put you into a coma."  I folded my arms over my chest, quite confident in my ability to lose control of my power surges and send either of them into the Green for a while.  I smiled, rejoicing in the fact that my earlier screw-ups were now sources of strength for me, and I didn't have to change a thing to make that happen.

"She looks a little too happy about the prospect of this coma for me to not be concerned," said Garrett, eyeing me carefully.

"I have heard of her near-comas in Silver House."  She shifted her hands away from her weapons.  "Very well.  I am ready to shed some light on our past, Garrett.  Are you?"  She lifted her chin in challenge.

"Absolutely.  Why not clear the air?  We've only waited a thousand years or so to get to it, right?

She nodded, taking my hand in hers, drawing me over to the tree.  "Sit down, Jayne.  This is going to take a while."  I watched as her wings faded and then disappeared from her back, making her able to sit on the ground next to me.  I reached over to the space where they had been, waving my hand around, wondering if they were just invisible now; but they were gone.  My hand greeted first nothing, and then just her back.

She smiled at me but offered no explanation for her disappearing appendages.

Garrett sat down across from us, leaning once again against the bark of the tree.  He gestured gracefully at Shayla.  "Ladies first."

"Ever the gentleman," she said, and then turned to me with a smile.  "Once upon a time, long, long ago, Garrett and I were pledged to one another, me as a silver elf and he, as an incubus ..."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

SHE WASN'T THIRTY SECONDS INTO the story before I had to stop her.

"Wait?  You mean silver elves and incubi can ... get it on?  Like, officially?"

"Of course, if you mean by
get it on
that we can come together in an intimate way and procreate."

"For life?  I mean, can you have babies and be married and all that?"

"Interracial pairings occur all the time.  Don't tell me you're prejudiced," Shayla said, frowning at me.

"No, not at all.  I just have never seen it in the compound.  I have no idea how it all works, in the fae world."

"Great Spirit, they don't educate younger fae on the ways of procreation anymore?  That just seems dangerous to me," said Garrett, shaking his head.

I smiled.  "No, we know about all that stuff.  It's just that I was human for most of my life, and fae birds-and-bees were never part of my training.  So I just kind of ... I don't know ... never thought about it in detail."

"Let's just say that interracial relationships are common and can result in children of either race.  Will that be enough of an explanation for me to go on?"

"Yeah, sure.  Go for it.  I get it now."

"Very well.  As I was saying, Garrett and I were pledged to one another.  But a great uprising occurred that interfered in our plans to actually go through with the binding ceremony.  During the battle that followed the uprising -or during one of them, I should say, as there were many- we lost our lives in the Here and Now and went our separate ways.  We have not seen each other since."  

Shayla seemed very matter-of-fact about everything, but I could tell she wasn't unaffected by her story.  She kept stealing glances at Garrett and then looking at the ground.

Garrett was still sitting with us, but his mind was far away, lost in the memories.  "Of the many things I've been forced to bear as my punishment,
that
has been the most heavy burden of them all.  Knowing that Shayla, the one I loved with all of my heart, was out there somewhere thinking ill of me while I was elsewhere and unable to see her or to explain."

Shayla leaned over and shoved his shoulder.  "Don't get all maudlin on us, Garrett.  It was an eon ago.  And your selling us out does nothing to convince me you have any regret over losing what we might have had, or fooled ourselves into believing we had.  You made your choice and had to suffer the consequences, like we all did.  You should have moved on.  I did."

My mind was going in about four different directions, wondering what it should clarify first.

"I am not being maudlin," he snapped back.  "I have had a thousand-odd years to think about it and mull it over ... try to make sense of it.  And, truly ... even after all this time, there is no sense to be made.  You can believe what you want, but I sold no one out."

"Then tell us how you ended up in the Underworld, my friend.  Tell us that," she said bitterly.

Garrett sighed.  "I am too deeply ashamed of myself to confess my sins to you, but believe me when I say it had nothing to do with you and me.  Let us talk about something else right now.  I am certain Jayne would like to know about the uprising, as it is more applicable to her current concerns than the sorry state of our former love affair."

Shayla stared at Garrett for a few seconds before turning her attention to me, clenching her jaw a few times to get control of her emotions before speaking again.  "He is probably right.  The uprising was a big problem for us, and it appears as if you are about to suffer the same miseries that we did back then when we were young and foolish enough to believe we were invincible - and that love could conquer all."

"Shayla, please," begged Garrett.

She held up her hands in surrender.  "Fine, fine.  I'll stop.  I'm sure your lifetime of guilt has done enough.  At least I hope it has."  She looked at me, putting her hands in her lap.  "Prepare yourself, Jayne.  What I am about to tell you will remove the veil of ignorance from your eyes.  Are you absolutely certain you want that?"

"What, are you kidding?  To know the secrets that everyone is keeping from me?  Hell yes, I want to know.  Lay it on me.  Don't hold anything back, either.  I can totally take it, no matter what it is."

"I know you can."  She reached over and squeezed my hand once before pulling back again.  "You are a strong girl, and I expected nothing less from my bloodline."  She smiled proudly before continuing, drawing her sword from its scabbard and feeling along its edge carefully as she spoke.  

"About a thousand years ago, when Garrett and I were members of your realm, we experienced an uprising from the Underworld.  It began as you have seen recently, with orcs making sporadic appearances, several weaker fae channeling demons in both word and deed, and things being generally out of sorts.  These demons caused many problems with our people and in our communities.  There were some smaller battles and then one large one, fought in an area of the forest where several fae witches working with an elemental were able to trap hundreds of orcs within the trees there and close the portals through which they were entering this realm."

"That's not the worst of it.  Tell her about the others ... the Time of Sadness," prompted Garrett.

Shayla bowed her head.  "We lost many fae in our war with the Underworld.  Some races were eradicated completely.  The sorrow that rose up from the mourning covered our world with a cloak of darkness.  The fallout was that those in the Overworld were overwhelmed.  They could not keep up with the need for comfort and support coming from those in the Here and Now.  The darkness and misery spilled over onto everything."

"Even good fae turned to darkness, finding no solace in the arms of light.  Many of us lost our way," said Garrett in a quiet voice.  "Others gave up everything, so that those remaining might find the light again."  He looked up at Shayla, his pleading gaze making my heart spasm for him.

Shayla cleared her throat, and when she spoke again, her voice was hoarse.  "The weapon you wear symbolizes the terrible sacrifices we were forced to make."