Five: Out of the Dark (5 page)

We started to patrol at night. We stuck to the seedier parts of Seattle, the places that seemed to be hotspots for paranormal activity. The cops didn’t patrol in those areas. Any unexplainable incidents were chalked up to druggies or crazy homeless people. We found the dark streets and alleys were the perfect places for those of the Netherworld to conduct their business. We decided to use our special abilities to protect the poor and downtrodden people that lived or merely existed there.

We stayed out of human affairs and concentrated our efforts on the un-human. On dark forces like Demons and the evil men who summoned them. Or baby-stealing Faeries, flesh-eating Trolls, annoying Goblins, and other such nefarious creatures. My life as a pastor’s daughter certainly hadn’t prepared me for any of this—these weren’t things he mentioned in his Sunday sermons.

With the protection of our fellow humans in mind, the five of us set out in an area we hadn’t been before. We walked past a small grocery store and heard a terrified scream coming from inside. I was closest to the door, so I rushed in and I saw, with a small measure of excitement, a small group of Goblins. They were terrorizing the grocer and one of his customers. I shrunk back from the ugly little creatures that looked like chubby meth-heads. I didn’t want to get any of the oozing yuck on me that was coming from the open sores that pocked their yellow-gray skin. They were all disgusting, but one in particular made me want to hurl when it stuck a short, fat finger in its bulbous nose and removed a slimy booger the size of a small rodent. It flicked the booger at the grocer.
At least it didn’t eat it
, I thought with disgust.

A rope was wound around the grocer and the elderly customer. The Goblins were taunting them and throwing produce at them. The store was a mess.

“Hey! Perfect timing!” Alec yelled as he stepped to my side. “We just studied about Goblins.”

I smiled.

It took us no time at all to dispatch the nasty creatures. I took aim and exploded my Goblin into a pile of green tar-like ichor.

Halli and Alec ganged up on one and it burst into flames before it was even aware we were there. Seth dropped a shelf full of canned goods on his, smashing it like a pancake. Johnathan cast a spell that made the Goblin’s tongue swell up so big the creature turned purple and choked on it. He won the prize for the most creative kill of the night.

As creatures of the Fae, the Goblins’ remains didn’t stick around for long. They smoldered for a few minutes before evaporating back into the Netherworld where, we’d recently read, they would eventually reform. So killing them didn’t really kill them, it just sent them away for a while.

Alec and Seth untied the grocer and his customer. The elderly woman hobbled away screaming from the store.

The grocer said, “Thank you, kids. My name’s Joe and before you ask any questions, I don’t want to talk about what just happened. I’d rather just pretend it was a bad dream.”

Johnathan introduced us and asked, “Can we help you clean up this mess?”

“Oh, that would be great. Let me put out the ‘closed’ sign.”

During the hour it took us to clean up the store, Joe skillfully turned the conversation in such a way as to coerce us into telling him we lived on our own. He didn’t pry, or try to find out why or where we were staying.

Joe handed a bag full of non-refrigerator dependent groceries to each of the boys before he let us out the locked door. We started to walk away when he called, “Johnathan? Uhh, just so you know. I … uh,
throw out
the old stuff every Wednesday, you know, to make room for my Thursday morning shipment.”

“Oka-a-y,” Johnathan said.

Joe looked him straight in the eyes. “I always lock this
garbage
in a metal box out in the side alley … you know, so the dogs won’t get into it.” He slipped a key to the box into Johnathan’s hand.

aige, you’re with me tonight,” Johnathan said. “Alec, you take Seth and Halli and patrol around King Street. Paige and I will go over a block and start there.”

We were starting our nightly patrol. I was thrilled to be assigned as Johnathan’s partner for once. Usually he stuck me with Alec or Seth while he went with the other one and Halli. This was a special occasion, and I hoped we wouldn’t be interrupted by business. But, our quiet time together, when I could just stare at his lovely face—okay, not stare, but glance sideways at it often while we walked—was not to be. Almost before we’d gone a half block, the chains around our necks began to buzz.

We’d all started to wear the chains. Johnathan had placed a charm on them so we could communicate with one another when we were split up. The buzz meant Alec’s group had spotted something. I snuck one last glance at Johnathan’s dark chocolate brown eyes and sighed as we turned and headed back to King Street.

Halli met us at the corner. The camouflage spell she’d cast on herself flickered as she moved toward us. That’s the only way I could tell where she was without tapping into my
sight.
A normal human, unaware of what to look for, wouldn’t have noticed her at all. Demons and other Fae used similar spells when they wished to remain unnoticed by humans.

“We saw a Faerie trying to enter an apartment window,” Halli whispered. “She’s carrying something. Alec thinks it’s a changeling!”

We weren’t sure why Faeries brought changelings to our realm and exchanged them for healthy human babies, but I had my own ideas about it. The type of Faerie that typically did this was beautiful beyond words, but the changeling was a hideous creature with an ill temper.
I
think the changelings were really Faerie offspring that came out ugly. Maybe they were the offspring of a Faerie and a Troll or something, but Faeries hated anything that wasn’t of great beauty—including their own children. I think they traded for a beautiful and healthy human baby so they could raise it as their own, and leave the hideous and annoying changeling for the humans to deal with. Like my totally irritating cousin. The one everyone hated to be around. His parents could often be heard saying to one another, “He gets it from
your
side of the family.” It was quite possible my cousin was a Faerie changeling.

Quietly, we sneaked up the street to where Alec and Seth watched the window. The Faerie couldn’t go completely into the dwelling without permission from someone inside, so unless the baby’s crib was next to the window where she could just lean in and make the exchange, she would have to move on to another baby. She hovered near the open window, trying not to drop the wriggling bundle she held in her arms. Faeries ranged in size from the size of a hummingbird to petite human adult size; this one was about the same size as Halli. As she struggled with trying to open the window wider, Johnathan signaled for Alec and Seth to move next to the building below either side of the window in case the Faerie finished the exchange before he and I could maneuver into place. The boys nodded and took out their channeling rods.

The window was two stories up in a three-story building. Johnathan and I slipped inside the building and stealthily ran up the stairs to the roof. The plan was to throw a binding spell on her
before
she made the exchange, because the binding spell would cause her to drop to the ground, and we didn’t want to risk hurting the human baby. The changeling, however, we didn’t care so much about risking. We hadn’t left ourselves much time. She was just reaching through the window to lay the changeling in the crib when we peeked over the side of the roof. Johnathan and I pulled out our channeling rods and hit her with a double whammy.

“
Bind
!” Johnathan yelled.

“
Bindicus
!” I yelled.

We’d discovered the words we said weren’t as important as visualizing in our minds what we wanted to happen. In fact, the words weren’t even one hundred percent necessary. They just helped us to focus. Johnathan was pretty straightforward in his use of words. I preferred to make up my own words to sound more hocus-pocussy. Usually I did so by adding a Latin-sounding ending to a normal word. Johnathan laughed at my made-up words, but I didn’t care. I thought it made them sound more mysterious and magic-y. Sometimes I even used real Latin words and they seemed to make my spells stronger.

Both spells hit her at the same time. Her face froze—eyes huge and mouth open—when her wings, arms, and legs snapped together as though we’d wrapped her up in an invisible tortilla. Gravity took over and she fell like a brick to the sidewalk below. Halli, bleeding heart that she was, cushioned her fall with a pillow of air.

“Crap!” grumbled Johnathan, whipping his head to move a strand of dark curly hair from his eyes.

“What? That was awesome! A double blast of binding—she doesn’t know what hit her!” I did a celebratory fist pump in the air.

“Yeah, it was cool.” He smiled at me, his dimples appearing all too briefly. “But, she dropped the changeling inside the window right before we hit her.”

“Oh. I really hate when there’s a ‘but’.”

That too-brief smile tugged at the corners of his mouth again, leaving me aching for more. “We have to go get it. Any ideas how?”

“Hmm. I don’t suppose knocking on the door and asking the mom if we can just go get something we dropped in her baby’s room will work?”

Johnathan rolled his eyes and shook his head.

I sighed. “I guess you’re going to have to lower me down to the window so I can reach in and grab the little imp, then.” I’d never much liked heights. Not that I was necessarily
scared
of heights, I just preferred to stay closer to the ground whenever possible.

None of us had yet perfected levitation, so Johnathan pulled a thin rope out of his backpack and fashioned it into a makeshift harness. He must have been a Boy Scout in his former life. I stuck my legs through the loops and tested the strength of his knots.

“Don’t you trust me?” His eyes widened, eyebrows raised.

I smacked him on the shoulder. “Of course I trust you, or I wouldn’t be about to put my life in your hands.”

“Don’t be so dramatic. A fall from this height wouldn’t necessarily
kill
you. Just don’t land on your head.”

“You aren’t exactly helping my jitters.”

Just then, either the baby—or the changeling—let out a wail. Johnathan and I looked at each other, alarmed. He tied the end of the rope off on a pillar, then held tight to it right next to where the knot was tied at my waist. I concentrated on his broad shoulders and muscular arms as he helped me over the ledge. His momentary touch on my arm sent chills racing down it as he lowered me to the baby’s window. I reached in and grabbed the bundle the Faerie had dropped, took a quick peek to make sure it was indeed the changeling, and signaled for Johnathan to pull me back up just as the door to the baby’s room started to open.

Whew,
I thought.
That was close.

The blanket covering the changeling dropped open during the pull back to the roof. I peered down at the wiggling creature in my arms and shuddered as I wrapped it tight again, doing my best to avoid having my fingers bitten off by the hideous creature. Its face was that of a hairless dog, with a long muzzle and razor-sharp teeth. Slathering drool dripped from its pronounced overbite. Small, squinty eyes the color of a white T-shirt after it’s been washed with a new, black towel, focused on my face. Its wrinkled skin had dark areas of rotting flesh. Of course, that was what the changeling really looked like. Only those with magical abilities could see through the camouflage placed by the Faeries. The human parents would have seen a passing replica of their kidnapped baby. I handed the bundle to Johnathan and wiped my hands on my pants.