Time slowed down as my body was launched into oblivion. Funny what your mind chooses to zoom in on when you are being blown up. Later in my bathtub I would ponder this phenomenon.
I watched the macabre dance of limbs and bodies parts as the flames lit up the room in a flash bomb. I felt a timey whimy shift in things. If I were honest with my self I would admit that I heard the TARDIS land in the middle of the flames, but of course all of that could be chalked up to the fact that I was in the middle of a bomb site that used to be a bar filled with Weres.
I felt glass and wood whipping around my body. Oh great, I was going to be bruised all over again. Black people were not attractive with bruises, trust me on this.
I saw Quinn and Alcide rip through their hunan forms to shift into tiger and wolf respectively. Quinn tackled me into a crumbling wall, at least I had a somewhat soft fall, and Alcide leapt toward Sookie.
My eyes exploded in my head as me and Quinn tattooed the floor with our faces.
Quinn growled and I was sure I screamed, or howled. It was an inhuman sound that escaped my lips. The situation called for it so sue me.
We bounced a few times as the flames roared around us. Quinn rolled us away from a piece of falling roof. There was no time to catch out breaths. I climbed to my feet looking around to see who was still alive. My vision sharpened and my ears twitched. I had no idea what as going on but I felt something swirling in my veins. It was pumping me full of energy. I felt the heat spreading through my body. I wanted to laugh at the feeling. It was like slamming back a case of Redbull and chasing it with a espresso the size of Texas.
A figure launched itself out of the flames aiming straight for me. My body reacted before my brain could catch up my arm reached up into empty space. My eyes wondered what the hell my hand was doing but when my fingers wrapped around a handle my arm pulled a sword into existence. It was a long katana sword, but the material wasn't steel it shimmered like gold. With a flick of my sword arm the head of the man went in one direction and the body landed at my feet. "Holy hell," I breathed.
While my eyes were still stuck on stupid snarls and growls rose up over the sound of splintering wood and groans of the fallen. A fight was going on. This hadn't been a random bombing. Someone had tried to kill us. Well scratch that, they were trying to kill us.
I jumped over Quinn's body leaping back into the fray. I was good and pissed off now. Figures were moving through the smoke and fog. Something screamed in my blood and my fight and flight response came roaring back with a vengeance, "Vampires," I hissed. Since Pam had been the only seemingly invited vampires I figured these were not friends. These guys were on clean up duty. Mop up any stragglers who happened to survive the bombing. Man, I watched way too much TV.
The vampires zeroed in on my like tracker beams. I must be bleeding, but I figured the glowing sword I was swinging was enough of a advertisement for an ass kicking as anything else.
Three of them circled me and my heart started pounding. I had never been in so much as a fist fight but with that golden sword in my hand my body was crouching down into an attack position as if I were a trained warrior. "Ok this is weird." I said to no one in particular.
I heard a growl behind my back and I really hoped it was a friend. "Get the faery. Kill the rest." A voice commanded from the fog. Holy pudding cup Batman! They were after me. What the hell had I done to deserve special attention.
"Have to get through me first asshole," I growled.
The vampires attacked. They moved faster than my eyes could track but some other sense kicked in and I was able to twirl and behead one of them as they appeared in front of me. The blood splattered across my face and I danced away from a strike from the other vampire. Quinn had shaken off the explosion enough to attack the third vampire. Two more vampires appeared out of the smoke and headed straight for me. This was getting really unfair.
Some of the bar patrons were moving around. The front of the building had been blown open and the nip in the arm was creeping into the place. The fresh oxygen caused the flames to dance higher and close to all the downed bodies. "If you can move get the hell out of here! Carry anyone else still alive!" I shouted. Bodies started moving. I wanted to thank whatever god or fairy there was that more people were moving than not moving. I hadn't been keeping track of the vampires and I was rewarded with a punch to the stomach for my faux pa.
I doubled over in pain as the vampire tried to rip my throat out. I slashed and removed his hand for the effort. With another flick I claimed his head too. The rest of the fight was a blur of blood and flying heads. I saw Quinn once or twice claiming as many vampires as I did. We were a wonderful pair in our deadly dance.
There was a lull in the endless stream of vampires and I was able to see that Sookie had been knocked unconscious while Alcide had a table leg protruding from his belly. Neither of them were moving. I kept them at my back since they had slammed into a wall that was still pretty much intact.
The vampire walking through the debris pulled something out from behind its back. "A gun!" I screeched. No that was really unfair. A vampire with a damn gun. I guess this one was smarter than the rest. He wasn't coming within sword reach. The vampire smiled and we started to dance around each other. He matched my feint left with a lunge to the right. I skipped back away from him. The vampire pulled the trigger and I ducked. Wood rained down on my head.
The vampire caught me with a left hook to the face. It snapped my neck back and I stumbled over a pierce of furniture. The vampire was on top of me in an instant. He wrestled me to the ground and my sword clattered out of my hand when I landed. I cursed loudly.
He slapped me and scrambled my thoughts. "You smell good bitch." He leaned down and licked my face. His eyes rolled back into his head in ecstasy. "I had heard stories about faeries, but I never believed it?" he breathed leaning down into my face. He looked like he was ready to blow his load all over my face. My stomach wanted to stage a revolt all over the floor. "They want you alive but I think I might just drain you." He said snaking out his tongue to like at my face again.
My hand was reaching around for my sword.
"Rockabye baby." I told him as my hand closed around the handle of my sword. In a swift move I ram the sword up through the vampires chest. It exploded in a shower of blood and gore. "Oh gross,". I dropped the sword to wipe off my face with my hands. Which didn't help.
"Did you really just fucking say that?" Alcide groaned. He was flat on his back and laying in a big pool of his own blood. I would have chuckled but I was having a hard time catching my breath. I had never worked so hard in life. Nor killed anything. Bugs didn't count in my book. Sookie was moving and groaning on the ground. At least she was alive.
I pushed myself up off the floor to survey the damage. Headless bodies were scattered everywhere, but there were only a few were not moving. My heart clenched. I wanted to kill the vampires all over again for that.
A few places in the bar were still on fire but most of the flames had been doused by the sprinkler system. Me and Quinn seemed to be the only ones left still standing and moving. "Quinn I need you human," I said to the tiger.
There was no way I was strong enough to lift Sookie nor drag Alcide to safety. So I was going to leave the heavy lifting to him.
It took him a moment to change back. The minute he was human I think I fainted into his arms. The energy just draining right out of me. Luckily Quinn caught me up in his arms.
"Fuck your hit." He cursed.
I shook my head, "Not my blood." I told him as I tucked my head into his neck. I heard the sirens and felt the flashing lights boring into my frontal lobe but for the life of my I couldn't let my head to make a snappy remark about it. Quinn cradled me out the front of the bar. I felt him talking to a few people through the rumbling in his chest. I was laid down on a stretcher. "Don't leave me," I begged gripping two of his fingers. I didn't want to be alone and Quinn was the only one that seemed to give a damn whether I kept on breathing or not.
I was manhandled this way and that way by the paramedics and then by the nurses and doctors at the hospital. I felt like a ping pong by the time I was sent up to a recovery room. I had a broken arm and a concussion, but oh boy the drugs they were pumping into me put me in deep space nine and I was loving every minute of it.
I woke up in a clean room that smelled like old people and disinfectant. My nose tried to wiggle off my face in response. I couldn't blame it. I hated the smell of bleach.
There was a knock at my room door and I tried to turn over, but my IV caught and I yelped as it pulled at my arm. Quinn dipped into the room and I perked up. He looked no worse for wearing at having been blown up. Whereas I was swaddled like a newborn in bandages and gauze. I felt like a tick after a good meal. "How you feeling?" he asked lowering himself down into one of the chairs in the room. It was a surprise he could fit. The thing looked like it was built for Barbie's dream house and not a mountain of a man that morphed into a tiger at will.
"Like I've been hit with a sledge hammer," my voice didn't even sound right. It didn't sound like me. I reached for the ginger ale that they had set out for me. I was too far from the little side table. Quinn had to get up and hand me the cup. I gave him a tight smile that pulled at the stitches above my right eye. "How is everyone?" I asked once I settled back against my pillow.
"Alcide and Sookie are still in surgery. Five casualties and I don't know who else is here." He winced as he stretched out his legs under my bed.
"Are you ok?" I asked. I found that I really cared how he was doing. That was news to my brain, but my heart was with the program.
"Yeah I'm fine." He fixed those purple eyes on me and I felt myself flushing and not from the heat in the room. "Why did you ask me to stay with you?" for a man his size he spoke so softly.
I shook my head, "I don't know." I took a sip of my soda. "I just didn't want to be alone." But I didn't think I would have asked Alcide to come with me. Alcide was the kind of man that women noticed right off the bat. He was tall, tanned and too damn sexy to be legal, but once he opened his mouth his allure was lost in a see of asshatness. Yeah that's a word. I didn't tell him any of this. I didn't want to talk about my revelations of Alcide with him.
"I see." He said like he really did see what I was trying to say. Well kudos for him because I was still I the dark. He pushed himself up from the chair and came over to my bed. My breath hitched up a notch and my heart skipped enough beats for me to do a remix. I looked up at him. I wasn't sure what this moment was calling for. He leaned down and placed a soft kiss on my lips. Fire flared through my chest right down to the top of my underwear. My body jerked off the bed as he deepened the kiss.
With a smirk on his face he pulled back and went to sit back down in his chair, "Been wanting to do since you ripped your dress off for me." He said. To which I blushed bright red. He chuckled once he saw how that affected me. No I don't have a lot of kissing experience to compare that to, but I've seen enough romantic comedy kisses to last a lifetime and that kiss Quinn just laid on me would have gotten an Academy Award and a Nobel Peace Prize.
I cleared my throat and thought about something intelligent to say. Anything really. My body was still flushed from Quinn's kiss and my mind, I could feel my mind was starting to grind to a halt and contemplate the meaning of a name, "What about Sookie?" Oh thank god I cold still form a proper sentence.
He looked at me, "She made it clear that I wasn't the flavor of the month for her." He sounded a tad bitter.
"Am I the poor man's Barbie substitute?" I mean hell if he were still pining after Sookie I didn't want him whipping those lips on me just for general purposes. Or to make himself feel like a man because she shot him down.
Quinn shook his head, "You aren't a substitute for anything. I wanted to kiss you because of you. Not because I'm still hung up on Sookie." Well if I couldn't take him at his word there was no reason to ask him about it.
I sighed and let the matter go. It wasn't like that kiss meant he wanted anything more from me than the kiss. So I was just going to take the kiss as what it was a kiss. I wasn't going to read some romantic comedy BS into it. "What about the vampire that came with Sookie?" I said breaking up the running commentary going on in my head.
I don't know why I was asking about her. She tried to eat me with a side of leather 4 inch boots. "Pam got a little burned, but she is no worse for wear." He said with a shrug of his shoulders. Seemed like Pam garnered less thought than the weather in Thailand. Which was fine with me. I was right damn tired of vampires at this point. "You going to tell me what happened back there?" He asked as he crossed his arms across his swelled chest.
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, "I have no idea. My reflexes just took over." And it was the honest truth. If I had stopped to think about it we would all be dead. As good as Quinn was numbers would have won out of over sheer strength. Not every one could be a King Leonidas. Though I was sure Quinn's body could have put Gerald Butler's to shame. "I guess my little Kill Bill routine proves that I'm a faery." Something in my blood sighed with content. So ok, my body had already told me that I was in fact a faery, but saying it out loud finally confirmed it in my head.
I was not human. At least not 100%. I felt like Dr. Xavier should have been rolling into my room to invite me up to his school any minute.
It wasn't that hard for me to settle on. My entire life I had felt like an outsider in the throng of humanity I had grown up in. Well as much of a throng a town of 25,000 could feel like. My birth had not been the stuff of Christmas carols and baby showers. I was born in the spring and promptly left for dead. Landing on the doorsteps of city hall with nothing more than a full diaper and a pacifier was not the way I wanted to start my life, but finding out that there is something special about me was a good way to continue my life.
Not knowing who my parents were was making a bit more sense now. Not that I was forgiving them for dropping me off like smelly laundry. That was a torch I was going to keep burning. "Do you hate me that much?" A soft voice asked. My eyes flew open. I hadn't even realized I had fallen asleep.
Quinn was snoring away in the chair looking as peaceful as a tabby cat, he would crush me into orange pulp if I ever said that out loud I was sure. The voice however was coming from the woman sitting at the end of my bed.
"Wha?" I slurred.
She chuckled and I felt warm all over. "I asked if you really hated me that much?" The woman was possible the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. She was the sort of thin that Giselle would have drooled over with coffee colored skin that shone like a new penny. If Helen of Troy was said to have a face that launched a 1,000 ships this woman could have sparked World War III with her smile. Which sported perfect polished teeth and even a little dimple on the left side. She was dressed in a flowing gown the color of the sword I had pulled out of thin air.
Something squeezed in my heart as she turned her coppered colored eyes on me. I remembered her face. "Mom," I croaked. She nodded slowly. Of all the times I imagined meeting my mom this surprising had not been one of my fantasies. "I uh..." my voice gave out on me and tears slide down my face.
She patted my leg, "Do not think that if given the chance to keep you I wouldn't have. Faeries do not spawn young much and we value them greatly, but." she stopped speaking and I wanted to scream at her to keep talking. I could listen to her musical voice till my dying day. Even then I wold beg her to give my eulogy. "I had to leave you in this world alone. It was not my choice. I hope you believe me." she searched my face.
I wanted to hate her. I wanted to scream at her about all the wasted birthday wishes I used to try and bring her back. All the chess tournaments I searched for her face in the audience. The school newspaper articles I wanted to tape to our refrigerators to get her approval and maybe a cookie for my efforts. All I managed to get out was, "Mommy." in a soft whisper.
She was at my side in an instant. She gathered me gentle in her arms and rocked my like the baby I was feeling like. I sobbed harder than I had ever sobbed in my life and then some. I felt my toes shaking with the effort. "Oh my sweet Nolan," she cooed. I could feel the warmth from her body flowing into me. The aches and pains in my body replaced with her heat. The stitches above my eye fell away. We stayed in that embrace till the sun came up and trekked across the sky to hang in the middle of the horizon.
Quinn woke up with a long yawn and a lot of vigorous scratching. He found us still hugging. "Hemera," He yelped bolting up from his chair and dropping down to one knee to bow at my mom. What the hell? I looked at him with raised eyebrows. How in the hell did he know who my mom was.
My mom leaned back from our hug. She looked over at Quinn with a small smile playing acorss her face. "Your deference is much appreciated tiger, but unnecessary. I left my crown at home," she chuckled as she stood up from my bed. "You have done me a great service protecting my child not once but twice. I am in your debt. Rise warrior." My mother touched Quinn on the shoulder and he stood up. She was no longer smiling. "Dangerous times are yet brewing for her. Will you stand by her side?" My mother asked. I sat up in my bed.
Quinn looked at me and then back at my mother, "Yes." he declared. Well didn't this just make my heart go zing, zing, zing.
My mother reached up and unclasped a small broach from her gown. It was a pair of wings. "Carry this as my badge warrior. You will be my daughter's vanguard in this coming war. For war is coming from Faery. Tonight my brethren struck the first blow. I can not defend Nolan in this realm. Carry forth my wrath on swift wings John Quinn." On gossamer wings that I hadn't noticed before she hovered above the ground to place a kiss on Quinn's forehead. His whole body lit up like a Christmas tree in the Rockefeller Center.
Hemera turned to me. "Nolan my daughter there is much left unsaid between us, but I can not tarry. Know that I have always loved you as the earth loves the sun. You are my beloved. Be safe." she smiled as she leaned down and kissed me on the forehead.
Before I could blink she was gone. Somehow my room felt like a brown bears cave in the middle of winter after she left.
Quinn looked like a glazed donut as he looked at me. "That was Hemera," he breathed.
I nodded like I had a clue who he was talking about. "I just call her mom." I said as I sat up and pulled the IV out of my arm. It didn't even sting. An angry beep started up.
"You're mom is like the queen of faeries. Like the original faery. Shit they named a greek goddess after her." He explained. He stared down at the pair of wings my mom had given him.
"What does that make me?" I sure didn't feel like a princess. I didn't think Disney was going to be asking me to pose for pictures in the Magic Kingdom.
"Something to reckon with," Was his simple answer. That got a smile out of me. A nurse burst into the room looking highly pissed off but she stopped when she saw the state I was in.
It took a few minutes for her to drag a doctor back into the room so I could be released. They couldn't explain how I had manged to mend myself in such short order and I didn't want to tell them it was faery dust. I doubted they wouldn't have believed me as fast as they would have slapped me into a straight jacket. But in the end me and Quinn were walking out that hospital in less than twenty minutes.
Quinn had gone to check on Sookie and Alcide who were resting up after their surgery. He had been assured that they would recover nicely. "I don't want to go home." I told Quinn.
He looked down at me, "I wasn't going to let you if you had tried." He answered.
Well that was good to hear. We grabbed a cab and he threw out an address that a I recognized as being on the riverfront. The radio in the cab was squawking about the bombing at the bar. Police were still combing through the evidence but it didn't look like a terrorist attack. Seriously? Did every bombing have to first be ruled out as a terrorist attack before they moved on to anything else. I wondered if they were going to come a calling on me.
"Oh hell Sage," I muttered. I had called her before Quinn had picked me up and told her where I was going. She was probably spitting teeth worrying about me.
"I called her while you were sleep." I glanced over at him. "Got the number off your phone." Well wasn't her enterprising, but I couldn't stay mad. Better for him to deal with Hurricane Sage than me.
The cab dropped us off in front of a smart looking hotel with crisp uniforms behind the counter. They didn't ask any questions when I walked in wearing a hospital johnny and a smile. I knew we both smelled like smoke and that was confirmed when we got on the elevator for the ride up to the sixth floor. I stretched out on the bed once we were inside his room. He went for the phone to order room service. He ordered enough food to feed an invading army. I hope the majority of that was for him.
After hanging up the phone he ducked into the bathroom and soon the sound of the shower running hit my ears. I clicked on the TV and was met with the images of the bombing. A redhead reporter was standing in the crater that had been the Hair of The Dog bar. Only the back wall remained. My heart was racing as I looked at the images. How was it possible that any of us had survived that?
Did they get the bomb schematics from Nickelodeon or something? There was a knock at the door. I switched the TV off to answer it. The bellhop pushed in two carts ladened down with platters of food. He started as he saw it was just me. I signed the receipt with a twenty percent tip. He smiled and ducked back out of the room.
I was in the middle of pouring syrup over my french toast when Quinn stepped out of the bathroom. His shaved head was gleaming with some sort of polish and he smelled like springtime. It was a curious smell for a man to have, but it didn't make him seem any less was wearing a pair of loose jogging pants and no shirt. His abs was so pronounced I was sure I could use them as a staircase to walk up to his face. He caught me looking and I blushed and went back to my french toast.
"I don't mind you looking Nolan." He rumbled as he stuffed a piece of bacon into his mouth. Well if that didn't set my face aflame I didn't know what else he could have said that would have done it. We sat munching on our respective breakfasts for lunch contently. I was glad Quinn didn't feel the need to fill the space with chitchat. Not that I wasn't in the mood but sometimes it was nice to just sit in silence and not have my brain trying to scramble for something witty or intelligent to say.
"What was my mom talking about? What war is coming?" I asked finally as I popped the top on a Sprite.
Quinn swallowed the slice of ham he had been munching on. "Something's been brewing in the supe world for a few years. There was a scuffle in the fae world when Sookie was kidnapped, but that was just the tip of the ice berg and it only settled a few scores. But this is a lot bigger involving more than just the fae. With Hemera involved I can see why." He swallowed a whole gallon of iced tea.
I nodded. I had no idea what he was talking about and it was irking me that Sookie knew more about the fae world that I did and it seemed I was higher up the food chain than she was. Not that I was the sort of person that held stuff like that over people's heads. I just wanted to know what the hell was going on. Since it seemed like people wanted me dead and I was still on the outside looking in. "Did you mean what you promised my mom?" I asked softly.
He fixed those purple eyes on me, "I never make promises I don't intend to keep." He wiped his mouth and stood up from the table. He had a look in his eye that made the butterflies in my stomach do the electric slide. "Relax Nolan I just want to grab a nap. Not tear your clothes off and fuck you till you pass out." He was saying that, but his eyes were telling me that was exactly what he wanted to do.
He stretched out beside me on the bed looking at me the entire time. He knew exactly what he was going to me and he was enjoying every minute of it.
