Suddenly, I realized what was going on. The Alfar didn’t want to intervene, and that clearly included Griffin, who was nodding his head vehemently along with his French counterpart’s every word.
“You have got to be kidding me,” I said, not entirely meaning to talk out loud.
“I’m sorry?” The French Alfar asked, as if I’d farted on his shoe.
“You have to be kidding me,” I repeated. “This is a joke. You can’t let her get what she wants and you can’t let her destroy this city. All of those people in that square will die. The soldiers, and policemen, and firefighters. They’re just doing their job, and they’ll die because they came across an evil that we helped to create.”
“We are not responsible for that creature,” the Alfar said disdainfully.
“That creature is part of where our power comes from,” I said, stepping up to face him down, nose-to-nose. Well, nose-to-midway-up-his-tie.
“And who are you, little girl?” He asked, his otherwise perfect Gallic nose wrinkling in such a way that I no longer found it so admirable. “Who are you to defy me, in my own Territory?”
That’s it, came a clear voice in my head, one that I only vaguely recognized as my own. I’m tired of this horseshit.
And with that I pulled, calling the labrys to me. Sensing its enemy nearby, it came to me fully lit, its power emanating from it in waves so powerful the air shimmered.
The native Alfar sprang back, Nose giving me a look like I’d pulled a ferret out of my cooter.
I hefted the ax to lay it over my shoulder, as if I were one of Disney’s seven dwarves with his pickaxe.
“I’m the champion,” I said. Then I looked at Blondie and Anyan. “You ready?”
When they nodded, I grinned at Nose. Then I started running.
We’d only made it a few paces before the Alfar threw up a shield to stop us. I wish I’d seen their faces when the labrys cut through it like it were paper.
I kept running as hard as I could, knowing I was getting closer when a few human police tried to stop me, although they did so while giving me a wide berth due to the fact I looked like a madwoman carrying an ax. I felt Anyan throw up a hasty glamour for that last block, and I turned to see who else was with us.
The rebels were there, Jack and Lyman lit up like blue-flamed candles, Lyman’s light so fierce it burned my eyes. Gog and Magog were also along for the ride, and I could see Hiral’s mad blue Troll hair flopping around like a bad rug on Gog’s head. Gog was carrying the little gwyllion on his shoulders. To my surprise, Griffin was also following us, though he didn’t look at all pleased about it.
Finally, we turned the last corner to pop out onto the deep square that surrounded Notre Dame Cathedral.
The fallen were everywhere, bodies littering the ground. Some were obviously dead, others grievously wounded. And depending on how many of those wounds had been inflicted directly by the Red’s claws, we wouldn’t be able to heal all of them with magic.
“Plan?” I shouted, the labrys trying to drag me forward to meet its enemy. Digging in my heels, I prayed someone else had an idea.
“We need air, we need power, and we need water. We’ve got air,” Blondie said, pointing at herself, then Magog and Anyan. “And we’ve got power,” she said, pointing at the ax. “We just need water.”
I let my head loll back, shutting my eyes and opening my senses. I could feel water, from both underneath me and farther away, higher up. There was water under the catherdral, which I’d later learn was the Seine. And a storm was brewing, close but not yet here. A plan brewed up within me, but I’d need both the water under Notre Dame and the storm…
[Call it], rumbled a sleepy voice in my head.
Whaaaaa? I asked immediately, trying to capitalize on the brief period the creature was responding.
[Call the storm. It will come. Let the labrys guide you… ]
Opening myself to the power of my weapon, I let it reach up and out. I felt my arm rise to the sky as my senses traveled the water molecules all around me to where they joined, miles away, with the storm clouds seeding high above the land.
And then I pulled, like an overly competitive ex-jock at his company picnic’s tug-a-war.
As I worked, I talked. Well, in my head.
Nice of you to show up, I told the creature.
[The dreams,] it said, sleepily. [Everyone’s dreams. Disturbed… a dragon… ]
Not just any dragon, I told it. But the Red.
[In front of humans? The media? I see it reflected in those screens you call televisions, monitors… ]
I thought a grim affirmative at it, the mental version of a nodding head.
It’s perched on one of the most popular landmarks in the human world. It couldn’t have attracted more attention if it were directed by Bruckheimer.
[You must stop it,] the creature told me, grimly. [You must stop it, and you must prepare. This won’t be hidden. I can feel humans everywhere, taking in this scene and I can feel their fear… ]
Yeah, well, we’re not big fans of the unknown, I told it, acknowledging a sad fact of my human heritage.
[You will be important, Jane.] It told me, all trace of sleepiness gone from its mind. [Even more than you are now. You must be the face of the supernatural world, as the humans understand it. You must confront the evil of the Red, and then you must appear before the cameras. They must understand you mean to help them.]
I swallowed noisily, my power over the storm faltering as I panicked. What did he mean I would have to talk to the cameras? I was no spokesperson. I was a halfling, a nobody, a pathetic little half-selkie from Maine…
And then I saw it. The perfection of it: the big eyes, the tiny build, the Converse and the small-town past.
I was the perfect ingénue. The baby-faced, doe-eyed innocent who no one could fear.
“Motherfucker,” I snarled, even as I reached with all my strength back up into the heavens. The storm obeyed like an eager puppy.
[I never fucked my mother,] the creature said, quite seriously.
It’s an expression of frustration, I told it. I don’t want this.
[I know,] it said, sadly. [But I will help. I will read as many minds as I can. I will help you understand what people are worried about, so that you can address them. It is what you call now a… marketing strategy, yes? I will help you market my children to the humans, so that they understand us. But now you must get the Red off of that rooftop.]
Aye-aye, cap’n, I thought wearily, feeling the creature again drop out of my mind.
“Jane? Jane?” came Anyan’s voice, intruding into my thoughts. He’d obviously been calling my name for a while, as he was clearly worried.
“You’ll have your water in about five minutes,” I said brusquely, looking to Blondie. “Are we going to get this show on the road?”
“We were waiting for you, babydoll,” said the Original. As she sprouted her enormous white wings, Magog threw off her overcoat, revealing her own beautifully feathered appendages. I heard the humans gasp around us.
“No glamours?” I asked.
“It’s a little late for that,” Anyan said, nodding towards the gigantic, ravening dragon.
Now that we were closer and I wasn’t communing with the creature and the heavens, I could hear that the shouting had been the Red, all the time. In between gusts of fire and kicking various beautiful parts off the ancient cathedral, she was screaming her brains out.
“Where is it! Where is my love! I’ll find him if I have to tear this city apart you puny mortals…”
I sighed. She sounded like a bad Syfy villain. Why did we never fight anyone who had any really good lines?
“The rain’s almost here,” I said, stepping forward and brandishing the labrys. I could feel its glee at facing its ancient enemy. “Let’s do this.”
“Hey, Morrigan!” I shouted, waving the ax like I was an air-traffic controller. “Down here!”
“You!” The dragon shouted, craning her bullet-shaped head on her long neck to peer down at me. “Where is the White!”
Around me, various humans were scampering away, or—unsure of our motivations—were setting themselves up to take a shot at us. Gog responded with a massive pull of earth power that ripped up the paving stones around us, separating us from the humans’ guns with three walls of dirt and earth magic. I could hear the guns firing, but I trusted to my own manifested shields as well as Gog’s to keep me safe as I strode forward within my little open-ended box of earth towards the dragon.
“I have no idea!” I shouted back at the former queen turned giant lizard. “But I do know where something else is!” With that I waved my labrys at the dragon, tauntingly.
The Red’s only response was to breathe a wall of fire onto my friends and me. We kept it behind our shields, but it got more than a little toasty inside our protections.
When she was done, I gestured to Blondie, Anyan, and Magog. The storm was right above us. The sky had been getting darker throughout the last five minutes, and now it was pitch black. The wind whipped through our hair while thunder boomed. I raised my labrys to the sky and felt a bolt of lightning bounce down and through me, absorbed harmlessly by the power of my weapon.