New World Order (War of the Fae: Book 4) (28 page)

He looked straight into my eyes.
 
“Because I don’t know if
I
can.
 
But that doesn’t matter because she doesn’t need my forgiveness; she needs yours.”

Through the tears that kept coming I said, “Well, she has it.
 
Tell her.
 
Tell her to go into the light or whatever.
 
And tell her I’ll catch her on the flip side.”
 
Even though I knew she was going to be okay, to lose my mom to violence like this ... it was too much.
 
Things like what happened to my mom, shouldn’t happen to women.
 
Ever.

Tony closed his eyes for a few seconds and then came back to me.
 
He squeezed my hand one more time before dropping it.
 
“Okay.
 
It’s done.
 
Your mom is gone.”

I reached down and covered my mom’s body with the blanket, pulling the sheet underneath up high to her chin.
 
I couldn’t bring myself to cover her face with it.

Just then Tim came buzzing into the room and up to the bed with an armload of flowers so big, it nearly grounded him.
 
I watched as he flew around her face, carefully laying out bloom after bloom of every type of flower she had in her garden.
 
By the time he was done, she looked like a fairy angel, lying in the middle of a miniature Infinity Meadow.

My friends gathered around the bed while Céline offered a parting gift of her soothing words.
 
“May your mother find peace everlasting and joy beyond measure in the golden meadows of the Overworld.
 
She leaves behind a legacy of love, bravery, and accountability in Jayne.”

“May her death be avenged in a way that somehow makes all this destruction easier to bear,” I added, already feeling the anger rising up in me.
 
There wasn’t a doubt in my mind that Rick had done this.
 
Otherwise, she would have been in the hospital – where I know she would have gone to die, because there was no coming back from something like this, even with the best healers at work.
 
No one could have recovered from wounds this horrific.
 
 
Someone had tortured my mom.
 
And that someone was going to feel my wrath in just a few minutes.
 
Once I had my family at my back and my plan in my head.

I went to the doorway of my mom’s room to join everyone except the twins who were still downstairs.
 
Finn, Céline, and Tony were standing just outside in the hallway.
 
Tim was hovering above everyone.
 
We could hear voices downstairs and they were louder than you’d expect for a succubus intervention.

I stepped into the hallway bathroom really quick to splash some water on my face to cool it down and rinse it off a bit.
 
I didn’t think dried snot was going to adequately express the murderous intentions I had towards Rick, and I wanted him to feel abject fear before he felt the pain I was going to bring.
 
I patted my face dry with the purple towel hanging on the towel bar.
 
Purple was my mom’s favorite color.
 
Seeing it in a rumpled pile on the counter where I’d just put it made me even angrier.
 
She should still be alive, enjoying her stupid hand towels.
 
Rick had taken her from me.
 
My mom had suffered a senseless act of violence that was going to be avenged right now.
 
And after I dealt with this issue, I was going to go over to Tony’s house and bring the pain there too if necessary.
 
I sent out a little prayer into the universe, hoping that the emails from his house were a false alarm, unlike the ones sent from mine.

I strode from the bathroom, charging through my friends and rushing to the stairs.

“Jayne, wait!” yelled Tony.
 

“Jayne!
 
Please!” said Céline.

But I heard none of it.
 
I pulled Blackie from my holster and headed for the voices I heard coming from the front room.
 
I was totally unprepared for what greeted me there.
 

The twins were slowly being backed into a corner, not by Rick, but by three orcs.
 
I felt like my eyes were playing tricks on me.
 

“Who let these fucking orcs in my mother’s living room?!” I yelled.
 
All I could think about was how they were going to stink up the place and stain the carpet with their blood.
 
For some strange reason I wanted to call a time out and tell everyone to take it out in the backyard where we wouldn’t ruin the furniture or bother the neighbors.
 
I wondered if my mom would be proud of me for being so responsible.
 
Then I remembered that my mom would never have the opportunity to take pride in me for anything I ever did again since the asshole standing off to my left had killed her.

I raised up my arm, holding Blackie above my head, and rushed at him, heedless for my own safety.
 
I pulled up short and watched in horror as the asshole that is Rick quickly morphed into some totally messed up, demon creature with horns, claws and everything else you would imagine of a nightmarish monster.
 
I had stopped short during the transformation, ending up about four feet in front of him.
 
He smiled at me, giving me a very good view of his very lethal-looking, pointy brownish teeth – a set that included two very big and extra long incisors on either side.
 
The creature’s long, black, forked tongue snaked out and licked its black lips with a loud slurp.
 

My stomach rolled over.
 

“Hello, Jayne,” he said, malevolently.
 
“Come to play with Rick, have you?”

An arrow flew past my left arm and imbedded itself in the monster’s chest.
 
He reached up casually and broke the arrow shaft off, throwing it to the side as if he was just brushing off a fly.
 
Black liquid started oozing out of the hole from where the splintered wood protruded.

“Surprised to see me here?” he asked, grinning wickedly.

“No.
 
I’m not one bit surprised to see that Rick was actually cover for a steaming pile of horseshit.”

The smile on the demon’s face turned to a frown.
 
“You mock me at your peril, fae girl.”

“You stand in my living room at your peril,
fuckface
.”

He took a step closer, and I held Blackie out in front of me.
 
“One more step and you’re going to feel the burn, baby.
 
Just one more fucking step.
 
I hope you do it, too.
 
You’re going to pay for what you did to my mom.”
 

Tim started buzzing the demon, zipping around by his face, stopping every once in a while to stick the creature with his tiny knife.
 
The little nicks he was leaving allowed black blood to seep out in droplets from the demon’s face and head but didn’t seem to bother him much.

“Take that, you demon dog!
 
Die!
 
Die!” yelled a fully enraged Tim.

“Tim, get back!” I shouted, worried he was going to be killed.
 
I couldn’t handle the death of another loved one tonight.
 
I watched him, stressed about how close he was getting to the beast, but I also began to feel my spirit soar – my littlest buddy was avenging my mom’s death as best he could and I realized how damn lucky I was to have him in my life.

Another reminder of how awesome my friends are came in the form of another arrow, buzzing by me, this one hitting the demon in the eyeball, embedding itself deeply.
 
Kill shot!
 
I prayed it had given him brain damage and would soon mean the end of its time in this realm.

The roar that came out of the demon’s mouth was nothing less than unholy.
 
It caused goose bumps to break out all over my body, and my hair felt like it was standing on end.
 
Even the little hairs on my butt cheeks.
 
I took a couple steps back, begging Tim to leave the thing alone.
 
“Tim, get
back
here!”

The demon reached up to the arrow shaft at its eye and started working on pulling it out.
 
I hoped with all my might that he’d pull his brain out of his eye socket with it.
 
I turned my attention back to Tim for a second, urging him with my frantically waving hand to get away from the monster.

Tim finally obeyed, coming to hover near my head.
 
“I got him for ya, Jayne.”

“Thanks, pixieman.
 
Now stay away from him.
 
He’s mad enough to kill you, me, and everyone else.
 
I don’t know what kind of powers he might have.”

I heard some screaming coming from the corner of the room, and saw that the orcs were finally getting in close enough to grab the girls – they’d held the black beasts off as long as they could with their small, pretty-jeweled knives and energy sucking skills.
 
I guess they didn’t work so hot on the inhabitants of the Underworld.
 

“Finn!” I shouted, “Take out the orcs!”

Two arrows flew in quick succession from behind me and into the orcs’ backs, making thunking sounds as the razor sharp arrowheads penetrated their thick hides, burying themselves deeply.
 
Both orcs arched their backs involuntarily and let out screams, instantly releasing the twins.
 
The girls scrambled over the now faltering orcs and slit their throats cleanly.
 
Theresa made good work with her weapon, cutting the orc’s head clean off; it rolled from his shoulders, spraying black orc blood all over my mom’s favorite couch.
 
The orc near Felicia was still moving a little, making efforts to get back up.
 
Felicia stabbed it viciously in the spine and then jumped up, getting out of the way of the carnage and moving with her sister to stand with Céline, Finn, and Tony.

The demon had finally given up on trying to pull the arrow out of its eyeball and had instead broken it off near his eye – or what used to be his eye.
 
Now it was a hole that black goo was running out of to drip down his face and chest.
 
Sure enough, it was dripping on my mom’s beige carpet.
 
For just one moment, I was glad that she wasn’t here to see this.

“You,” the demon said, pointing to me, “are coming with me.”

“Again, Finn!” I yelled, pulling The Green up and sending into his body, willing it to provide him with what he needed to bring about the death of this beast.

The arrow went airborne and found its target, true.
 
The orc stabbed by Felicia, with his head still attached, let out his final death scream and fell to the floor, tarry black fluid coming out of the arrow hole in the back of his head to pool beneath him.

The demon looked at them and sneered.
 
“Useless.”

“I agree,” I said, turning back to face him. “It’s time for you to leave now.”
 
I had given up on actually being able to kill this beast with my weapon, whatever it was, since arrows to the eyeball didn’t do any good.
 
I was not afraid to admit that I was terrified about getting that close to him.
 
I wished Blackie were longer.

I felt Céline come up beside me.
 
She held out a long, silver, sparkling sword in front of her, pointed at my nemesis.

“Whooaa, that’s a big friggin sword, Céline.
 
Where were you hiding it?”

“In my cloak.”
 
Her eyes never left the demon.

Finn fanned out to our right, getting a better vantage point to take another shot at the demon.

The demon stood there, breathing heavily, grunting with the effort.
 
He looked like he was trying to figure out what his next move was going to be.
 
My friends didn’t waste any time getting into position to take him out.
 
Tony came up on my other side and the girls got my six.

“What’s the plan, Céline?” I asked, deferring to her elderly wisdom.

“I was hoping maybe you or Tony had one.”

My eyes left the demon for a moment to glance at her in disbelief.
 
“Céline?
 
You’re our elder here.
 
You’re supposed to know how to handle this shit!”

She shrugged, keeping her eyes glued to the demon.
 
“I’ve never fought in a war before.
 
And I’ve never seen one of these either.”

I guess at that point the demon decided that he didn’t like being left out of the conversation any more.

“Stop talking.
 
I am taking the elemental with me.
 
Move or die.”
 
He took a step towards me, a very intent look on his black, blood-covered face.