Category Archives: Book 07: Compound Kids

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 39

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I assumed Artaxus was roaring out of frustration. If so, it was understandable. He probably couldn’t see very much. I couldn’t see much either.

In the time we’d taken to get the van and transform it, Vaughn must have created a fog bank. It surrounded the park, or at least the portion of it that people were in, reaching the nearest shops, turning the streetlights’ illumination into a diffused glow.

It wasn’t a bad idea. At the very least, it took arrows out of the equation. Goblins could still shoot, but they couldn’t deliberately target anybody.

Well, not unless they had amazing hearing—which I couldn’t rule out.

Continue reading Faerieland: Part 39 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 38

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Haley glanced toward where we’d seen the dragon fall. I wondered how soon we’d see him again.

“OK,” she said. “As long as I’m being useful. I’m not likely to do much good against that by myself.”

“We’ve got to go to the garage, and it’ll be faster if we fly.”

Haley frowned, muttering, “Great.” But she still stepped forward and put her arm on the shoulder of my suit. The hardness of her transformed nails made a slight scraping noise.

I picked her up, started the rockets with my tongue, flying straight up with the idea that it would be easier to avoid arrows and Vaughn’s winds. Haley pulled herself closer (which would have been hugely distracting if I could feel it through the suit), saying, “I hate this.” Continue reading Faerieland: Part 38 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 37

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Izzy shot into the air, moving so quickly that she was nothing more than a blue blur. She hit the dragon’s wing at the joint where the small inner wing ended and the larger, triangular far end of its bat like wing began.

The bone made a crack that was audible to all of us below.

Izzy didn’t stop there. She followed it up with another punch that I didn’t see, but found its mark.

Artaxus stopped breathing fire and snapped at her, twisting his neck around. He failed to catch her. She’d shot upward again, hovering far above him. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 37 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 36

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Touching my palms with the fingers of my gloves, I typed back, “Named Artaxus. He’s a dragon. Don’t look in eyes. Mind control.”

Rachel texted back, “Fuck.”

Amy and the dragon were still talking. I typed, “Need to get outside. Bad to fight here. Because fire.”

Kind of have a plan, Daniel thought to me. Amy’s about to suggest we talk outside. If he doesn’t buy it, we run.

That’s a bad plan, I thought back. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 36 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 35

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Amy lowered her chin, looking at him as much as she could without meeting his eyes. “I don’t want the throne, and even if I did, I don’t want to kill my sister and plunge the kingdom into war.”

The man shrugged. “Give yourself time. You might find that you feel differently in another hundred years.”

A hundred years? I thought.

To judge from Amy’s thoughts, Daniel replied, the nobility, and particularly the Bloodmaidens, are long-lived—assuming they don’t die in combat—and they do that a lot. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 35 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 34

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I looked over at Daniel. “Do you know what’s going on out there? We have a plan, but all we know is that everybody is outside in the park. We were basically going to take out the leaders and go on  from there, but we didn’t include dragons in the plan.”

Not giving Daniel a chance to reply, Haley asked, “And why aren’t they coming to investigate all the noise?”

Cassie looked toward the hole in the wall, into the shop, and (I’m assuming) out of the shop’s front. “She’s right. They’re not.”

Daniel closed his eyes. “Give me a second. I’ll find out.” Continue reading Faerieland: Part 34 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 33

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Amy came through first, hitting the far side of the hallway with her back, or technically with her armor. Izzy came through along with her, readying another punch, her mouth curled in a snarl.

Her punch hit Amy in the jaw—she’d lost her helmet somewhere—and I heard her jaw break. Her head hit the wall hard enough that visible cracks spread out at least six feet, her red hair spreading out behind her.

The Cabal’s soldiers were tough, but I’d seen them die. If Izzy kept on hitting like that, Amy wouldn’t be able to stand up to it. Besides, however Amy siphoned off other people’s powers, she might not have gotten the total package. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 33 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 32

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And then things got weird. Well, they didn’t become instantly weird, but soon enough.

Amy had put a spell on me that allowed me to see in the dark, and more importantly to see through illusion. I hadn’t seen anything when I looked at Daniel because he wasn’t an illusion, but as he sensed my memories I sensed his.

As I connected, I knew without doubt that there were illusions in his mind. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 32 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 31

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Daniel’s mask covered all of his face but his mouth and chin, making it more difficult to read him, but not completely impossible.

He stopped biting his lip, leaving his mouth in a straight line.

“Daniel,” I said, “look inside my head. You’ll be able to tell what’s really going on in seconds.”

He didn’t say anything for a second, but then… “They told me you’d say that. I can’t. It’s not a fairy invasion. You’re all demon-possessed. You may not believe it, but I’ve been shown the evidence. I need you to go with us, and we’ll bring you to someone who can cure you.” Continue reading Faerieland: Part 31 →

Arc 8: Faerieland

Faerieland: Part 30

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Chunks of the rock wall flew in all directions, both into and out of the shop. Worse, a huge slab of rock from just above where Amy and Izzy broke through waited until after the initial crash to fall.

It came to rest inside the hall, its lower end wedged against the remains of the shop’s rear entrance.

Noting that the chunk of rock was not only between Daniel and us, Cassie, and Camille, but also between us and the exit we’d planned to use, it was time to rethink that part of the plan. I wondered if we should follow Izzy and Amy out of the shop they’d wrecked, but that question was answered quickly in the negative. Continue reading Faerieland: Part 30 →