“Let her go,” Brendan said through gritted teeth. “Now.”
“I don’t think I will.” Orcadia tapped her chin in a mockery of contemplation. “No. I won’t do it. Unless, of course, you join me.”
“Never,” Brendan said. “If you harm her in any way, I will make you pay for it.”
“Oh, that is truly funny. You will make me pay. You haven’t got a chance, Breandan. No one can help you! You’re uninitiated. The only friends you have are Humans, a sawed-off pipsqueak of a Lesser Faerie, and a miserable Exile. Oh, no, no, no, my dear foolish nephew. I can do whatever I want and you can’t stop me.” Orcadia turned to Delia. “Sweetheart, pick up those garden shears, will you?”
Obediently, Delia reached out and plucked a pair of shears out of a barrel nearby. She held them up. The rusty blades gleamed dully in the lamplight.
Brendan’s mouth went dry. “Don’t…” he whispered.
“Now, Delia dear, put the blade to your throat.”
Without hesitation, Delia raised the blades and pressed the sharp edge upward under her chin.
“Stop it!” Brendan could barely speak he was so terrified.
Orcadia turned her attention back to Brendan. “Now, Brendan. I will give you one last opportunity to see the error of your ways. Pledge yourself to me and I will let her live. Refuse, and I’ll order her to cut her own throat.”
Brendan was completely helpless. He knew he couldn’t let his sister die. She had been the bane of his existence for as long as he could remember, teasing him, playing tricks on him, insulting him. He’d always thought that he couldn’t stand her. Now, when she was about to be taken away from him forever, he knew that despite all the crap she put him through, he loved her.
With that realization, Brendan suddenly felt a surge of strength. His worry and his fear were overwhelmed by another emotion so powerful it flooded his heart and ignited his mind. He looked at Orcadia’s smug face, smirking back at him, and the fire in his heart intensified to an almost painful degree. The emotion that possessed him was anger.
Orcadia seemed to sense the change in him. Her smirk slipped slightly. She took a step backward as he raised his hand and pointed at her. He channelled all his rage into one word.
“No!”
The effect was immediate. Orcadia was hurled backward as if a giant fist had smashed her in the chest. She flew through stacks of rubbish on her way across the cluttered cellar. Brendan heard, rather than saw, her hit the far wall.
Delia dropped the shears and fell into a heap on the concrete floor like a marionette whose strings had been severed.
“Oh-ho!” BLT crowed, pumping her fist in triumph. “You nailed her good. A Shout! 83 I wouldn’t have believed it unless I’d seen it!” She capered in mid-air in a bizarre hovering victory dance.
Brendan rushed to Delia’s side. She was breathing easily, almost as if she was in a deep sleep. Finbar came up behind him.
“She’s all right, lad,” the old man assured him. “Just in a deep sleep.”
A searing blast of energy sailed over their heads and smashed into the furnace. The cot was set alight.
“Get her out of here,” Brendan demanded. Finbar gathered Delia into his arms as Brendan stood to face Orcadia.
She walked toward him, blasting stacks of junk out of her way to clear a path. “You dare strike me, whelp?”
“I told you before,” Brendan said firmly with a bravado he didn’t feel. “I don’t like it when you call me names.”
“I’ll do worse than that.” She raised her hands, and a ball of bristling purple energy coalesced between her palms. “Die!” She flung the ball toward him.
Brendan’s intention was to duck out of the way. In his panic, he willed himself to move aside. As soon as he framed the desperate thought, a strange thing happened.
The world seemed to slow down. It was as if some divine being had pressed “Slow” on the DVD of the universe. He saw the ball approaching, and he had all the time in the world. He watched, fascinated, as the energy tumbled toward him, plumes of force erupting and dying back into the orb like tiny solar flares on the surface of a miniature sun. He turned his head and saw BLT hovering in space, her face frozen in wide-eyed fright. Her tiny wings, usually a blur of movement impossible for the naked eye to follow, flapped in slow and languid strokes.
Brendan looked the other way and saw Finbar with Delia in his arms moving toward the stairs with infinite slowness.
I’m warping! Like that Bartender Saskia. They called her a Warp Warrior. I’ve speeded up. It’s awesome!
In the time he’d been marvelling at the Warp phenomenon, the energy ball had moved closer by a couple of metres. Brendan looked around and his eyes settled on a baseball bat sticking out of a barrel.
“That’ll do nicely,” he said.
First, he grabbed the handle of the bat and pulled it out of the box. Next, he dashed across the cellar, ducking under the ball of energy on his way. He stopped directly in front of Orcadia and studied her snarling face, full of rage and hatred. Brendan’s own rage welled up inside him. He cocked the bat preparing to smack the helpless Faerie in the side of the skull.
Instead, he paused. Despite all the trouble she’s caused I couldn’t just smash her like that. It’s too… too much like her. Walking over to the ball of energy inching through the air, he stood in its path and slightly to the side. He took up a batter stance, waggling the tip of the bat in the air. He’d never been good at sports. He’d always been clumsy, uncoordinated. Now, though, he had all the time in the world. He felt completely in control. Being a Faerie had brought him a lot of pain, discomfort, and terror, but there was an upside. Taking careful aim, he swung the bat and connected with the ball of energy.
Time returned to normal.
The impact shivered up through his forearms. The bat shattered in his hands. The wood scorched. The ball of energy went sailing like a rocket, up into the wooden beams overhead. The wood exploded, and the upper floor fell in a cascade of rubble onto the surprised Orcadia, who disappeared under an avalanche of debris.
“Home run,” Brendan said with grim satisfaction. The warping seemed to have drained his strength. He staggered, his limbs quivering and his arms aching from the swing of the bat.
A piece of stray wood tumbled through the air and struck the oil lamp on the table. The lamp shattered, sending burning oil scattering across the piles of rubbish. Immediately, the rubbish began to burn.
“By the Wild Hunt! You’re a Warp Warrior!” BLT cried. “This is totally incredible.”
Brendan didn’t hear her. He didn’t hear the crackle of the flames or Finbar’s cries for him to get out of the cellar. He was completely focused on Orcadia lying in the rubble at his feet.
She moaned and tried to rise, but Brendan wouldn’t let her. He placed his foot on her shoulder and pushed her back to the floor, pinning her down. Blood, red but tinged with a hint of purple, glistened in her pale hair where a stray piece of falling debris had struck her in the scalp. She looked up at him with hatred in her eyes.
“Well,” she rasped. “What are you waiting for? You have to kill me. If you don’t, I’ll find a way to kill you.”
Brendan sneered, “You really are pathetic. I’d be doing the world a favour.”
“Then do it!”
He still held the stump of the bat in his hand. He looked at it and made a decision.
“I won’t be like you,” he said. He tossed the bat aside. Flames licked the walls all around them now. The smoke was growing thick. “I won’t be a killer. My parents taught me right from wrong. My Human parents, that is.”
“Fool,” Orcadia snarled. She struggled to rise. “If my brother could see what you’ve become, he’d be disgusted.”
“Don’t be so quick to put words in my mouth, Orcadia.” The voice was deep and strong. Brendan turned to see where it was coming from. In the centre of the flames raging in the cellar, a shadow appeared. Brendan backed away toward the stairs as a tall Faerie stepped out of the heart of the flames. “I think he is an exceptional child.”