With a gait that was graceful and strong, but not quite human, Haley crossed the distance to the doorway, stopping next to the doorframe.
Amy’s wards made it appear that no one was in the room, but Haley had let the wall block their vision of her. She, in turn, didn’t try to look out the doorway. She closed her eyes, turned her nose slightly upward and sniffed.
At moments like that, I wished that Daniel were around. He’d be able to tell me what she’d smelled without risking asking her aloud.
Samita pursed her lips. “In myths, mortals typically tricked the fae into leaving them alone. They also lost a lot.”
“Great.” I considered logging in to my computer for a moment before remembering that the compound was locked down. That meant no internet access. We’d have to rely on anything in Samita or Amy’s personal libraries, and whatever we remembered about the fae.
My eyes lingered on the wound. “Anyone feel up to treating this? If it’s me it’s just going to be basic first aid, but Amy? Samita?”
Samita fumbled for her pouch. “I made a few rolls of bandages. They don’t heal wounds, but you don’t bleed while you’re wrapped up.”
Vaughn raised an eyebrow. “How’s that better than normal bandages?”
Samita looked up from sticking her arm inside the pouch up to the elbow and feeling around. “I didn’t explain it very well. It’s much better. While you’re wrapped up it’s as if you weren’t even hurt, and you can wear it long enough without changing the wrap that you heal.”
“If we’re going to fight people,” I said, “and especially if we’re going fight people we know, I want to go back to my lab and get my regular armor before we do anything else.”
Samita nodded. “That seems wise. With Amy’s wards up, it might even be a safe haven from the fae.”
“Let’s run with that,” Amy said. “But let’s not stick around too much longer. I don’t want to fight these guys twice if I don’t have to.”
I glanced around the room. Neither the goblins nor the troll appeared to be particularly active. The troll still snored. The goblins mostly lay on the floor. One of them whimpered. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 15→
The troll didn’t move. I looked back toward Vaughn and Samita to see how they were doing, noticing that only two goblins were standing.
Vaughn electrocuted one as it nocked an arrow to its bowstring. The other pulled a sword, charging Samita. She held her staff out, probably readying a lightning bolt of her own. As the goblin passed another goblin that was lying unconscious on the rock floor, it slipped in a puddle of some liquid (probably urine), and its feet shot into the air as it fell backward.
Worse, the goblins didn’t just have teeth. They wore armor and carried weapons–specifically swords and bows.
I took in the situation, and came up with the best plan I could think of on short notice. “I’ll grab Haley. Cover me?”
Still staring down the hallway, Amy didn’t look at me. “I’m going with you. You need someone to handle the troll.”
To be fair, Amy became a lot more intimidating as Bloodmaiden than she was as Amy. She went from being only a little taller than Haley to a little taller than me, and from being thin to… It was hard to tell if she became more muscular because her black and blood red armor would have thickened her arms even if they didn’t grow. I was pretty sure they did though. Even her hair thickened and grew.
Having already reformed the suit’s helmet, I watched as the suit attempted to connect to several different networks, finally only connecting to one–the Castle Rock Compound’s network.
Once connected, notifications began pouring in to my phone, lighting up in the corner of my HUD. I caught a few names as the numbers climbed–all of them students, most of them League members or friends. They were probably trying to contact me after I had sunk into the floor.
The glow of the blood red gem on Amy’s armor’s breastplate was the only remnant of the transformation as Amy took step toward me. “Do you want me to carry you, or do you want Vaughn to float you upstairs?”
Samita cleared her throat. “Maybe you could carry me?”
“Why?” Vaughn asked. “Did I do something wrong? I tried not to flip you over or anything.”
“No. It’s just that you and the Rocket have been on the same team for years now, so I thought he’d probably be more comfortable than–” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. I’m lying. It’s because it’s terrifying. I’m sure it’s fine for you because you’re controlling it, but I was falling in the dark. I couldn’t see anything but wall, and the only thing stopping me from hitting the ground was air.” Continue reading Faerieland: Part 11→
Standing together in the dark, I looked each of them over, all of them grey in my HUD.
“But really, how bad? Is this ‘fairy pranks and vomiting slugs’ bad, or are we talking ‘slaves to the fairy queens’ bad?”
Vaughn put a grey hand up to a grey chin. “That’s a toughie.”
Samita frowned. “It’s somewhere in between. The little people have infiltrated the entire compound, keeping anyone who isn’t magically protected from noticing anything troubling. Practically the entire world is watching what’s happening in Turkmenistan because it’s everyone’s nightmare. ‘What if the supers take over and rule the country?’ Well, no one in the compound cares now. When shows are interrupted with news, no one pays any attention.”
It took longer than it should have. I wasn’t checking my phone when I was in the cell, but now I was encased in my suit. The time was in the upper right corner: 7:04 pm. Haley had started climbing around 6:30 pm.
Even assuming it would take thirty minutes to scale the wall, she would have finished by now.
I was fairly confident that it wouldn’t take anywhere near that long. I’d watched her start her climb, calculated her speed based on how far she moved, taking into account the possibility of slowing down, and come to the conclusion that if it were 1000 feet, she shouldn’t take more than ten minutes to scale the entire thing. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 9→
The Legion of Nothing: A Series of Online Superhero Novels (Updates Monday and Thursday)
