Chapter 8
Chapter Eight
M y swearing got lost in the blind moments of nothing that owned me in the portal. Then I popped out on the other side.
The fairy turned toward me and muttered swear words as my body came flying toward him. I was still screaming my head off, as any sane person would have been in my place. My body slammed hard into Ezra’s as the force of my exit took the two of us to the floor.
Moments later, we rolled off each other and away.
I turned my head just as Mom hefted the dagger from my vision and yelled at me. “Fiona... run!”
Since I had no energy for running, I groaned and rolled across the cave's dirt floor, while a grunting Ezra climbed to his feet. The fairy I’d knocked down started toward me with murderous intent in his gaze. He drew an energy sword from the air with as much ease as my mother so frequently did.
“Ya should have stayed in prison where I put ya, little girl,” the fairy said to me as he raised his sword to strike.
I blinked up at him in shock. So Ezra had been the one who told the Shadow Breakers to put me in prison. He’d just confirmed it. I wish I could tell Jessing and Hart they were right about him. They also deserved to know that helping me had been the right thing to do.
“Fiona!” My mother’s next scream got cut off as the giant snake’s mouth widened enough to close over her entire body.
“Mom!” I yelled in my shock.
Inside the snake’s mouth, I heard Mom screaming in rage. I could see her feet poking out as she stood on the curve of his fangs pushing up to keep his mouth from closing tight enough to swallow her.
I tried to call out to her again but no sound left my throat. I could only groan in frustration and tried to pull my weakened body upright.
Mom stabbed at the snake with her dagger, which made the snake hiss. The tip of the dagger sizzled and burned a hole. I had to look away when I realized Mom was carving a door through the front of its mouth, which was beyond gross.
As I watched in horrified shock, Mom vaulted through the opening between the snake’s fangs and hung momentarily in the air with nothing to support her fall.
“Oh, shit!” Mom called out loudly. And then she screamed as she fell.
I bit back my panic and refused to add to Mom’s problems. Or maybe I was simply too scared to squeak. It was hard to tell.
The giant snake was now rolling in pain and thrashing his coils. One of them caught Mom mid-fall and sent her into the stone cave wall. She struck out at the wall with her tiny dagger. The weapon sizzled loudly as it sank into solid rock.
Still screaming obscenities at the giant snake creature, Mom slid down to the floor leaving a dagger gash behind her.
Once on the ground, Mom yanked the dagger free of the stone wall and stared at it in shock. Melted rock dripped off the blade. “I guess I should thank ya for not giving me a sword,” she muttered fiercely to someone. With Mom, you never knew what beings she consulted for a job.
All I could feel was relief. I wish I could have told her how much more of her life I understood now.
Ezra had stopped his attack on me to watch Mom survive her ordeal. While she was rushing toward us, the fairy swore and raised his sword to finish me. At that moment, I knew my luck had run out. If he swung that sword, I had no way of protecting myself. I couldn’t even stand up yet.
If you’re going to help me survive, this would be a good time to do something helpful, I sent to the ring.
No need. Help is coming , it sent back calmly—too damn calmly, if you ask me.
When the portal crackled again and thunder rumbled, we all looked at it to see what would happen next. My fairy attacker glanced toward it too but still arched his arm to swing at me.
Looking around the fairy to see who had come through, I yelled at a snickering Tony as the sketchy portal closed for good behind him.
When he and Jessing were creating it, Tony claimed its sputtering was from him being out of practice in making them. I think the smirky bastard enjoyed forcing me into shitty situations so he could laugh at what I did to cope.
Next time, I wouldn’t be so quick to heal him.
Today we were hopping from one dangerous situation to the next. Hopefully, this chaos wouldn’t become our norm.
I glanced up to where Ezra and his energy sword were frozen in place above me. His hand and weapon were poised for the killing blow. He leaned toward me with the very real intention in his gaze of ending my life. Mom would have either lost her shit or frozen in shock.
Thanks to my smart-ass angel mentor, we wouldn’t have to find out which.
I hated it when Tony froze me. He did it often during our training. At first, I had blackouts about what happened when I was in that state. Lately, the ring had let me stay aware of my surroundings and of Tony. Being constrained was not any easier to bear but I appreciated keeping my memories.
My head shook over all the chaos. I was happy Tony brought me here to help Mom but he could have treated me a lot nicer. He didn’t have to call me ‘Your Highness’ just because I insisted on helping her. And, to be fair, I’d been completely right about Mom being in a dire situation and needing help.
Part of me knew being mad at Tony for this mess was unreasonable. Either the giant snake or Ezra could have killed me without his intervention. Mom couldn’t have saved me from both and still saved herself. She was barely surviving. I was damn lucky because I was a much easier target to kill than my mother.
I glared at Tony for smiling. “ Never do that to me again. You could have flown us here, you big idiot.”
“You can’t fly into a cave. Use your brain,” he ordered.
“Impossible cretin!” I yelled, wishing I had my mother’s gift for cursing. I blamed my language on Conn who had refused to let my speech deteriorate over the years I was growing up.
“You’re such a wimp,” Tony said calmly.
I muttered terrible things about him under my breath while I climbed to my shaky feet. The loud, painful snake hissing nearby, plus the adrenalin from nearly losing my life, had my ears ringing. Over the ringing, I heard Tony laughing and something in me snapped. It was like that moment in the cell when I was tired of the ring ignoring me.
Mom’s eyebrows shot up in shock when I glared at the angel and stomped my foot. Then I turned and saw how close to me Mom was.
“Mom!” I yelled in relief.
I ran to her with my arms out to hug, then halted a few feet away. Something wasn’t right about her. And she smelled really , really terrible.
I glared. “What kind of outfit are you wearing? Snakeskin does not suit a short woman. It makes your hips look big. And you’re covered in ashes and stinky goo. Mother, you need a shower.”
Reaching out, I pulled something out of her hair. It had been caught in a curl. “Eww... is this someone’s actual finger? The nail has a pentagram on it.”
I promptly dropped the finger on the cave floor and squealed. “Gross, gross, gross,” I chanted, wiping my hands on my jeans to get the dead person’s cooties off me.
Mom must have found my reaction funny because she laughed. She reached behind her hips, shoved the dagger into the back of her jeans, and then threw her arms around me. Despite her smaller size, she remained much stronger than me. I tried to pry her hands away and found I couldn’t. She swung me around, laughing like an idiot the whole time.
Eventually, it got very hard for me to breathe. Then I realized Tony and I had saved her. Yet Mom’s rescue hadn’t technically been anything I did. I didn’t have that sort of power. Thinking about who possessed enough power, I glanced over at Tony who was watching Mom and me with his typical smirky expression lighting his face.
“Put me down, Mom. Put me down, right now ! There will be no more touching or hugging until you wash all the dead people out of your hair.”
Mom lowered me gently to the floor. Her smile stayed in place. “Thank ya for the help, daughter. Hang on while I finish my snake-killing. I have to free Conn and Mulan. I’ll only be a few minutes.”
She pulled the dagger again and turned toward the giant snake. Then she discovered she couldn’t move her feet.
“Sorry, Aran of The Dagda, but I can’t let you kill the snake man. Not while I’m around,” Tony informed her in his pompous, smart-mouthed angel way, while also sighing with obvious reluctance to stop her.
I rolled my eyes at him while Mom glared.
“That snake is an escaped criminal. I appreciate yer help in saving me, stranger, but this isn’t yer fight.”
Tony snorted. “Unfortunately, it is my fight now. Blame your too-entitled daughter for my interference. We aren’t supposed to be here.”
Now held in place by an even stronger magick than the constraint spell she often used, Mom turned and looked at me. But what I could do about her situation? It’s not like I had enough power to make Tony release her. The ring didn’t do things for me on command. I had to negotiate everything.
It hit me hard in that moment, that if I didn’t master the ring’s power, beings like Tony would always have the advantage over me.
I couldn’t let that happen. “Let my mother go,” I ordered. All the wicked being did was snicker at my words.
“Sorry, Your Highness. But I can’t do that,” he said.
I quietly whispered to him that he was a bastard who deserved to eat shit and die. But that only made him laugh.