“I am Daryl!” she stated, then coughed. “Goddess of the woods. I’ve learned of steel and leather to defend my sisters, and you are…warned!” Turning away, she struggled to breathe.
“See, she’s touched!” Vi yelled from under Vincet. Struggling, the little girl got an arm free. “Go crying to your demon, Daryl! You’re a concubine! A minor nymph with delusions of goddesshood!”
Jenks’s eyes widened as the woman’s coughing suddenly ceased. Head turning to the base of Sylvan’s statue, she straightened. A murderous look was on her, and Jenks felt a moment of panic. “Get out of that pixy, Sylvan,” she intoned. “Now!”
Straining, the little girl gestured rudely. “Ay gamisou!” she yelled defiantly.
Jenks had no idea what she had said, but he filed it away for future use when the woman staggered back, clearly appalled.
“Jenks!” Bis whispered from under him. “Let’s go!”
“I promised to help!” Jenks said, fascinated at the color the woman was turning in her outrage. “And I’m not going to leave Sylvan stuck in a statue by some nymph!”
Daryl’s attention flicked to Jenks and Bis, then back to Vi. “I will not allow you to hurt another, Sylvan!” she said loudly, gesturing.
Bis reached up, wings spread as he half jumped to snag Jenks from the air and pull him down. Bis’s warmth hit him as Jenks cowered in his hand while a wave of nothing he could see passed over them, pressing against his wings and driving the blood out. His wings collapsed for an instant, then rebounded on his next heartbeat.
Vi screamed, the sound reaching deep into Jenks and driving him to wiggle from Bis’s fingers. His head poked free, and he saw Vincet spring into the air with his daughter. Her dust had taken on a deathly shade of black, bursting into a white-hot glow as it fell from her. Again Vi’s scream tore the silence of the night as Daryl clenched her fist, her face savage with bloodlust.
“She’s killing her!” Vincet shouted, terrified. “Jenks, she’s killing my daughter!”
“Get her away from the line!” the gargoyle cried out as he stood his ground. “I can see the energy flowing into her. You have to get Vi out of the line!”
Jenks’s lips parted. Cursing himself as a fool, he darted to Vincet, snatching the pain-racked child to him and throwing himself straight up. The line. The entire garden was in the line between the statues! Get her far enough away, and the connection would break!
Vi fought him as his ears popped painfully, thumping her fists into his chest and squirming until she suddenly went terrifyingly limp. “Vi!” Jenks shouted, scrambling to catch her as she threatened to slip from him, a good forty feet up. Her skin was hot, and her face was pale in the glow of his own dust. But a profound peace was on her face, and as he held her far above the dark city, fear struck him deep. The silver tint to her aura was gone.
“Vi,” he whispered, jiggling her as the night cocooned them. “Vi, wake up. It’s over.” Oh God. Had he failed her? Was she dying? Killed by his own shortsightedness? Another man’s child dead in his arms because of his failing?
Vi’s lips parted, sucking in air like it was water. Her eyes flashed open, green and full of terror in the light of the moon.
“Tink save you, you’re okay,” he whispered, his eyes filling with tears. She was herself. Sylvan was no longer in her thoughts. That terror of a woman no longer burned her.
With a frightened whimper, Vi threw herself at him, her thin arms cold as they wrapped around his neck. “Don’t let him hurt me,” she begged as she cried, her little body shaking. “Please, don’t let the statue hurt me anymore!”
A clear, healthy glow enveloped them as Jenks held her close, his hand against the back of her head as he whispered it was over, that she was okay, and he was taking her to her papa. He promised her that the statue wouldn’t hurt her again and that Uncle Jenks would take care of everything. Foolish promises, but he couldn’t stop himself.
Uncle Jenks, he thought, wondering why the term had fallen into his mind but feeling it was right. But below them, Daryl waited on the dark sidewalk. And Jenks—was pissed.
Jaw clenching, he descended more slowly than he wanted in order to give her younger ears a chance to adjust. Vincet met them halfway down, his wings clattering and dusting in fear until he saw Vi’s tears. With a cry of joy, the grateful man took his daughter. Vi’s sobs only strengthened his resolve.
“Get your family to ground and stay there,” Jenks said grimly.
“I can help,” Vincet said, even as Vi clung desperately to him.
“I know you can. I’ll take the field, you take the hearth,” he said, falling back on the battle practices of driving off invading fairies. One always stayed in earth to defend the hearth—to the end if it came to that.
Vincet looked as if he was going to protest, then probably remembering his sword was broken at the base of the statue, he nodded, darting away with Vi to vanish beneath the dogwood.
Free, and anger burning in his wings, Jenks drew his sword and dropped to where Bis was clinging to Sylvan’s statue, hissing at Daryl as she stood in a spot of light with a satisfied smile.
“What the hell is wrong with you!” Jenks shouted, darting to a stop inches from the woman to make her jerk back. “You could have killed her! She’s only a year old!”
Daryl’s thin eyebrows rose. “A pixy?” she said haughtily, then stifled a cough. “Take your complaint to what demon will listen to you. Sylvan is in that statue, and there he will stay!”
“I’ll take my complaint to you!” Jenks shouted, poking his sword at her nose.
The woman shrieked, robes furling as she swung her fist to miss him completely. “You cut me! You filthy little mouse!”
Jenks darted back, only to dive in again to slice another cut under her eye. “I’m letting Sylvan go if only to piss you off! You look like a sorority sister in hell week with that discount sheet around you! What is that, a one-fifty thread count? My three-year-old can weave better than that.”
Clasping a hand over her eye, the woman shrieked, her voice echoing in the darkness. “I’ll destroy you for that!” she cried, spinning to keep Jenks in front of her.
“Jenks?” Bis said loudly, half hiding behind Sylvan’s statue. “Maybe we should leave the goddess alone.”
“Goddess!” Jenks pulled up a safe eight feet into the air. His sword glinted red in the lamplight, and his wings hummed. Cocky, he dropped back down. “She’s no goddess. She’s a whiny. Little. Girl.”
Angry at the woman’s lack of respect, Jenks slashed at her robes with each word.
“Uh, Jenks?” Bis warbled his creased face bunched in worry as she screeched.
“Get out of here!” Jenks yelled at her like she was a stray dog. “Go find a museum or something. That’s where you belong! Tell them Jenks sent you.”
Panting, the woman came to a halt, staring up at him. Her face was red, and determination was equally mixed with anger. A car door slammed in the distance. Someone had heard her and was coming across the wide expanse of lawn. Oblivious, the woman jumped straight up at him with a fierce yell.
“Holy crap!” Jenks exclaimed, darting up. But the woman had sprung to her statue, scattering Bis and using it to make another leap for him. “Whoa! Lady. Chill out!” Jenks shouted as he darted to the nearby tree. Immediately he realized his mistake when Daryl leapt into the branches, following him.
“I am a goddess!” she screamed, her sword thunking into the branches as he dodged her. “You will die, pixy! Your name will be forgotten. Anyone who aligns themselves with Sylvan is a shade still walking!”
Maybe he went too far, Jenks wondered as her blade got closer with each swing, but before he could retreat, his wings unexpectedly froze. He had a glimpse of Daryl blowing at him with her lips pursed, and then he plummeted, falling through the leaves to the cement below.
“No!” Jenks exclaimed as the smacking of leaves against his back ceased and he dropped into free fall. A yelp escaped him when long, thin, gray fingers caught him, pulling him closer to the ashy scent of iron and dry stone. Above, Daryl scrambled to reach the ground.