Cole woke from his stupor and stood back up. He looked after the Harlequin with an expression I couldn't identify and asked “That form he took, that's supposed to be you?”
I answered “That's what I look like under my glamour. A watered down version, but yeah.”
“Why did it affect me like that?”
I shrugged “Genetics?”
“Which means?”
“I'm part angel, maybe it's got something to do with that?”
His eyes grew distant and he said “No, I've met angels before. This is something else. Something wrong.” I wanted to ask how he'd met an angel, but his expression said he'd rather not go into detail. Instead, I was thinking about what I needed to do next.
It looked like finding my mother was going to be the next step, but it wasn't like I was going to be able to look her up on the internet. At least not without a name. Cole said “So, we going after your mother now?”
“Yeah, unless I wanna keep fighting bounty hunters till someone finally kills me.”
Cole sniffed “So your own mother put a bounty on you and you don't even know her name? Then how do we get any real information on her?”
That was something I wasn't sure about either. The Harlequin had said to try sinning if I wanted to attract a demon, but I'm still off balance ever since I ate that imp. I've been avoiding sleep just so I won't see how far I've slipped. I answered Cole's question “We need to find a demon, but we can't do it by sinning.”
Cole raised eyebrow “Why not, most fun things are a sin?”
I sighed “Because we're going to have to do something really bad and I don't want to hurt anybody I don't have to.”
Cole snorted and threw up his hands “Then how else are we supposed to find a demon, Craigslist?”
“Craig’s what? No, I know a guy who might be useful if we can make him owe us one.” I laughed evilly and Cole joined in because no one can resist a good evil laugh.
I watched from a dark alley as the group of pixies tore into a bag of leftover donuts from a nearby bakery with envy. They'd taken those donuts from one of my favorite dumpster diving spots and my stomach growled angrily.
I had to hold myself back, food later, for now there was the plan. A hooded figure jumped from the rooftops and landed among the pixies, sprinkles and jelly went flying everywhere. The figure swung its arms and legs in large and exaggerated swipes like a monster attacking a city and the pixies were the planes. The pixies threw toothpicks that stuck in the attacker’s skin and waved their swords at him to no effect.
Picklefizz slashed his tiny sword angrily at the attacker and a custard filled donut fell prey to his prowess. Custard covered the attacker I heard Cole's anger filled voice “This shirt is designer!” I ran in before the violence could escalate and grabbed Cole by the collar of his shirt. I lifted him up and shouted “Leave these kind pixies alone you fiend.” Cole groaned piteously and shouted “Woe is me, I am defeated by this worthy and true hero. Curses!” Our acting skills were terrible but it's not like my training came with a theater class.
I held Cole above my head and took a hard step forward. Cole's eyes widened with panic and he said “Woah, woah. Just hold on a sec- auugh!” I hurled him a couple of blocks away and trusted his healing and supernatural reflexes to protect him. I heard Picklefizz say “Thank you kind sir, I am in your debt oh crap, it's you.”
I waved nonchalantly “It's good to see you too pickle.”
“No, no, no. I already gave the oath! Damn you.” I smiled at the stamping pixie as his sister and the other pixies tried to calm him down.
“Hello Pickle, I need a favor and seeing as you're in my debt…”
Poor Picklefizz looked like he was going to have an aneurysm, but he was one of the few of my attackers that I hadn't killed and therefore my best source of information.
Picklefizz jerked his arms free from his pixie possie and spit on the ground at my feet and said with a voice full of sarcasm “How could I possibly refuse after taking your aid? Ask away.” I nodded my head in appreciation and said “Take me to hell.” Picklefizz’s face went stony “You really don't mess around when you want something, do you? Can't you be like other kids and ask for candy or sweet dreams?”
“Maybe one day.”
“Well, you've wasted your time. I only know of one doorway to hell and you can't get to it. It's in Faerie.”
Cole came striding over and stood next to me. His clothes were covered in donut filling and he had applied a layer of sunblock to his skin so thickly that he almost looked like a wax figure. He laid an arm on my shoulder and asked “So, they gonna help us or what?”
Picklefizz looked from me to Cole and a look of horror and disgust crossed his face “You tricked me?! You planned this and tricked me into giving my word.”
A part of me did feel shame at using Picklefizz like this, but it is what it is. I don’t have a lot of options. I looked at cole “You weren’t supposed to show up for this part, why do we even bother to plan?”
He snorted “Oh really so I guessed I missed the part of the plan where you toss me into next week.”
“Well if I had, you might still be walking back instead of making me look like a jerk.” Picklefizz had drawn his sword and was glaring at me “On second thought, I believe I have a way to get you to hell right now and it’s free, that should clear my debt right up!” I held up my hands defensively “Calm down, what’s a little trick between friends?”
“You’re not my friend!”
“Look, rules are rules. You can’t kill me anyway and you owe me a favor, whether I got the favor fairly or not doesn’t matter.”
Picklefizz frowned “It doesn’t matter anyway, I’m not taking you to Faerie. It’s not allowed.”
Cole asked “Why not? I know for a fact that the Fae are always abducting humans and taking them to Faerie to play your twisted little games.”
Picklefizz's rubbed his eyebrows “Don't you get it. No one cares if a couple hundred humans go missing, they breed like vermin and live short lives. Not good for much more than a game or two anyway. Honestly, even a vampire wouldn't be a problem. The problem is this one.” He pointed to me and I said “What problem?”
Picklefizz's said “You are a walking political nightmare. I don't quite recognize your smell but you're some kind of bastard of the Christian faith if I ever saw one and that is not the type of game any old pixie plays. The Fae stay out of the war between Heaven and Hell.”
“Well what about when you guys came looking to claim the bounty on my head?”
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
“You’re worth like three kingdoms. That's a lot of dough.” One of the other pixies chose just that moment to drop an overripe jelly donut on Cole's head. He yelled and chased after the pixie as it's friends dive-bombed him with pastry. I raised an eyebrow at Picklefizz and he shrugged as if to say “What can you do?”
I was getting frustrated, this was starting to seem like a dead end, then something popped into my head. I said to Picklefizz “You said the Fae stay away from anything to do with the Christian faith, so why is there a gate to hell in Faerie?”
“It's just an opening that appeared a couple millennia ago. Not like anyone would ever use it. Faerie is a paradise and no one in their right mind wants to go to hell.”
I looked at him in surprise “You're telling me a random gateway to hell just opened up and none of the High Fae tried to close it?”
“Some of them did try, but the Lord of the hunt sent them packing. He keeps the gate around in case any poor unsuspecting demon wanders through and into his hunting grounds.”
“The Lord of the hunt?”
“High Fae, very scary, very unpleasant. So you’d best give up because even if I did take you to Faerie, which will not happen without very extenuating circumstances! You'd still have to get past him.”
I smiled “So all you're saying is that we need some extenuating circumstances. No problem, my middle name is extenuating circumstances.”
Picklefizz groaned “It's like you really only hear what you want to.” On that note I took a subtly defensive stance. The sound of boots hitting pavement had entered my range of hearing only a couple of seconds ago and was still over a block away. I guessed about forty or so attacker's and the uniform sound of special forces military leather told me it could only be my good friends from the Limbo Project. A part of me untensed when I couldn't hear the telltale sound of Agent Sid's high quality Italian leather shoes. That same part happily reminded itself that Agent Sid was dead. Thanks Dr.Cabrera.
Cole was shrugging off the pixies and taking his own stance. I called to him “Watch out, these guys are tough. They helped raise me after all.”
Cole laughed “I fought in both world wars. I'm not scared of a couple of overpaid nannies.”
“You were in the World Wars? Which side?”
He shrugged “Does it matter? They all bleed red.”
“Just watch out, these guys might be overpaid, but they're no ordinary nannies. They use tranqs strong enough to knock me out.”
The Limbo project special forces came around the corner in a wave of black and white army fatigues. They held specially engineered assault rifles loaded with the special tranqs that would send even someone with my metabolism to dream land.
Cole whistled, impressed at the quick and machine movements of the unit. They were spaced out to minimize friendly fire and casualties while maximizing the area they could fill with darts. I smirked at Picklefizz “How are these circumstances?”
Picklefizz threw up a bunch of hand signals and the happy go lucky pixies jumped into formation. The pixies blasted off down an alley just as the soldiers pulled the triggers on their weapons and me and Cole were right behind them.
Darts peppered the air and it took all we had to avoid them. We were moving at supernatural speed just to keep up with the pixies beating wings. I risked turning my head and spotted the special unit following close behind us on something like rocket propelled skates. They chased us down alleys and through side streets, riding along walls and rooftops while barely losing any of their accuracy.
Darts started to hit Cole and me as we pushed ourselves to run faster and more erratically. The Pixies zoomed through the rain of darts expertly and seemed almost undaunted by the situation. A group of six soldiers managed to catch up to us. There were two on either side of me and two just behind Cole.
A man on my right raised his gun and said “Can't wait to put you back in your cage.” I ducked under his first shot and jumped at him, smashing my knee into his chest just hard enough to make him lose his balance. He lost control of his skates and hit the ground face first with a crack. Three darts hit me in the back and I yelled angrily and turned to see Cole riding on the shoulders of one of his assailants who was firing crazily in an attempt to shake him off. Cole yelled “Sorry bout that.” and wrestled the gun from his opponent before jumping away and leaving the guy to smash into a wall with a shriek.
The man and woman on my left fired at me in short bursts and I took six darts to my side as I tried to ram them both. I knocked the man off his skates and he went flying toward the woman. She jumped over him and ducked low on the ground to dodge a jab I'd aimed for her temple. She swept my leg and I wrapped my arm around her neck and sent us both tumbling at almost seventy miles per hour. She went limp on impact as we smashed into the ground in a jumble of limbs and Cole managed to grab my leg and tug me free of her corpse in mid stride. He fired his newly acquired gun and managed to catch the last two of our closest attackers in their necks. They practically fell asleep standing and managed to cause a kind of backlog as their friends tried to navigate around them.
My legs suddenly felt like dead weights and I leaned on Cole who easily took on my weight and kept pace. I used my left hand and started to shoot strands of angel threads at the walls we passed and was satisfied to hear lots of screaming and loud thumps as my angel threads did their work. We turned a corner and watched in horror as the pixies led us into a dead end. The alley just ended with a big brick wall and an old Disney world poster.
The pixies suddenly sped up and just when I thought I was about to witness some kind of horrible suicidal crash, they disappeared into the poster. Cole and I never even broke stride, we just put on a final burst of speed and jumped head first into the poster.
We crashed down on soft dirt just as the pixies were tearing down the poster to stop any followers. Picklefizz shouted sarcastically “Oh yay, you made it. I knew you could do it.” I pushed myself off the ground along with Cole and said “Of course, running away and chasing were big parts of my training.” I looked around and started to pull darts out of my arms, back, and legs gingerly.
I wondered why Cole seemed unaffected by the darts when he looked as much like a porcupine as me, but he just shrugged his jacket off along with the darts embedded in it. I decided that next time, I'd have to get my own jacket. Being prepared is essential.
We were standing on the main road of a place that looked kind of like if a city had been grown from seeds. Trees like skyscrapers rose from the ground, covered in rainbow colored moss and dustings of some glittery dust that smelled like honeysuckle.
Tiny animals stood outside some trees, selling odd looking wares and shouting obscenities about the products anyone else had to offer. Picklefizz started walking down the road and we followed cautiously. He made hand signals and his pixie fighter squadron flew off into the loud city streets.
We passed a large goose in overalls that was selling golden eggs. It held an egg out to us and said in a smoker's rough voice “You kids looking for a good time? One of these yolks and you'll be a couple of party animals. Only two favors, it's a steal at this price.” Cole reached out towards the egg and Picklefizz said “Eat that egg and you'll wake up as a turkey on some giant's dinner table.” Cole pulled his hand back and hissed angrily at the goose. The goose chuckled nervously and said “Hey, somebody's gotta feed the greedy.”
All around us were smiling faces and laughter as trolls, dwarves, elves, and other strange creatures I couldn't even name on sight frolicked. They talked and bartered and drank, dancing whimsically to a song it seemed only they heard. We'd just gotten here and already, Faerie made my skin crawl. There was some kind of odd undertone to the way everyone spoke and moved, something predatory.
We continued on and Picklefizz told us about the wonderful world of Faerie. “Here we are, the greatest realm of all and home of the Fae. Please keep all hands and feet inside the ride at all times, no telling what kind of appendage you'll pull back if you lose track.”
I asked “We're here, so why don't we skip the tour and you take us to that gate we were talking about?” Picklefizz looked offended, he said “Skip the tour!? Do you have any idea what you're saying? You've just walked into a place many have only dreamed about and you want to just rush on through?” Something moved in the corner of my vision and I struck out defensively before I could think. My fingertips stopped just short of the neck of a small boy with pointed ears and glossy hazel eyes. The little kid didn't even look threatened, he just raised a wet rag and said in an almost sinister tone “Shoe shine?” He smiled and I was reminded of an angler fish reeling in prey with its light. I said no thank you and was relieved when the boy just ran away to be lost in the crowd.
To answer Picklefizz's question, I said “I think I might be afraid.” Cole nodded “This place stinks. It's too sweet.” Picklefizz scoffed “And the putrid smell of pollution and hot trash on Earth was better? Everyone loves sweet!” Cole said “Earth smells honest. This smell is too sweet, like poison.” Cole's words made me realize why Faerie got under my skin so much. It was a lie. This place might look pretty, but it's just camouflage. “Picklefizz, how do we get to the gate?”
“I already told you, the gate is overseen by the Lord of the hunt. You can't just go to it.”
“Alright, how do we find this “Lord of the hunt” guy? Is there like a map or a riddle to solve?”
Picklefizz chuckled “Faerie doesn’t work like that, there are no cut and clear directions to get anywhere and even if there were. You don't find the high Fae. You are summoned by them, into their territory on their terms.” We walked for a little longer and I asked “So, how does one go about getting summoned by a high Fae?” Just as I asked the question, the ground opened up below me and Cole as a man's voice boomed in my head “Trespassing is always a good place to start.”