"Don't say I didn't warn ya," the voice drawled a tad sadly.
Jack hesitated.
It was a girl's voice. She sounded young, probably around his age. Her voice was a little on the deep side for a girl, and touched with a Southern accent. While his talent for linguistics pointed out that the girl's accent held a different flavor from what Jack was used to hearing from Clay Bailey, what Jack didn't hear was a threat.
It was more a tone of resigned horror, like someone watching an idiot trying to look down a gas pipe with a lighter in one hand.
Jack eyed the spinning dust devil in front of him.
"One step forward and I die?" He called.
"Yep." The strange girl confirmed. Her voice was coming from behind him; she must be farther back on the trail.
"Can I take a step backwards?" The albino youth asked.
"Oh sure. In fact, I wish you would. Blood's a bitch to get out of straw an' I like this hat."
Considering the girl was at least twenty feet behind him, this did not help to calm Jack down. Whimpering, the tech wizard shot backwards, barely getting ten feet before tripping to sprawl, yowling, across the trail.
"Geez, shut up! They don't chase!" The girl growled, closing the distance between them.
Jack looked up at his rescuer. Then he gave an exasperated sigh.
In a certain type of narrative, the newcomer would have been a strong, confident beauty that would move Jack's heart, test his commitment to homosexuality and his love for Chase and in general infuriate and/or disgust all witnesses to the debacle.
Luckily for all parties involved, the powers overseeing Jack Spicer's life weren't so creatively bankrupt as that.
The girl in the woods was perfectly ordinary. She had black hair that was pretty long, caught up in two braids that hung down over each shoulder reaching nearly to her waist. Her eyes were plain old brown. She was . . . well, not unattractive, but her jaw was a little too square and there was a bit too much jawbone for her to qualify as pretty. As Jack climbed to his feet, he noticed she was about his height, again, a little tall for a girl. In fact, she looked very much like some sort of Native American warrior princess, not so much pretty as handsome.
He also noticed with a grimace of distaste, she had on a cowboy hat of loosely woven straw. She had cowboy boots in the same pale buttermilk shade as the hat, blue jeans and . . . God, a T-shirt with a picture of a tractor printed on it. 'Keepin' it Rural' bragged the garment in yellow letters.
Jack fought back the urge to gag.
"You an escapee from Camp Brainwash?" The girl asked.
"Yeah. How'd you know?" Jack asked.
The girl gave him a long calculating look. Jack felt his own distaste for her personal style mirrored in that look.
"Lucky guess."
Jack gave her a nasty look and glanced back at the thing. It remained where he had first seen it.
"Should we be hanging around?" He asked.
"It don't matter; they rely on prey to walk right into them. They can't run very fast. But yeah let's get out of here before Brother Jason gets his ass in gear an' comes after us." The girl started hunting around for a rock.
"You know about Brother Jason? You're from Camp Brainwash, too!"
The girl grunted, finally locating a rock that probably weighed about five pounds.
"I got sent there, but I seriously don't belong."
"Why's that? Because most men think lesbians are hot?" Jack sneered, honestly sickened by the double standard.
"Nope; I ain't gay."
This being said, the dark skinned stranger hurled the rock at the tiny whirlwind. The rock skipped off into the forest, but a hair-raising shriek echoed through the trees and something came into view above the whirlwind.
A dark, hairy creature collapsed on the path and looked at the two teenagers. Jack felt that urge to gag rising again. The thing had a vaguely ape-like face, with a round, toothless mouth. A long vivid pink tongue hung out of the mouth loosely. The creature picked itself up onto two enormous arms that thickened towards the end, resembling baseball bats. The heavily muscled upper body tapered down to a single rear leg, ending in a round hoof.
Jack realized the thing had been spinning around in the middle of the path so fast it had become invisible. If he had walked into those thick arms . . . splat city. The scientist in him insisted that was impossible, but Jack was used to the impossible. He took in stride.
The creature lurched towards them, bawling fiercely.
"Shoo! G'on, get outta here!" The strange girl bellowed, kicking dirt at the impossible creature. This seemed to unnerve the thing. It turned and loped off into the woods.
"What. The fuck. Was that?" Jack inquired calmly.
"A whirling wumpus. There ain't too many of them around these days. As long as you keep your wits about you, they're fairly harmless."
"A whirling wumpus? I've studied world mythology and I've never . . ."
"You study your Tall Tales, Snowflake?"
"The name's Jack! Jack Spicer!" Jack snarled fiercely. "Not Snowflake, Pocahontas!"
"An' my name's Johnny Betty Pecos! Not Pocahontas! I ain't an Indian!"
Jack paused, taking in the tan skin, long black braids, strong jaw and Roman nose.
"Not an Indian, riiiiiiiight." Then something else caught his ear. "'Johnny Betty'?! That's your name?! I think I'd prefer Pocahontas!"
Jack's hysterical laughter was cut off sharply as Johnny Betty seized him by the throat and lifted him easily over her head.
"Johnny Betty Pecos." She repeated in an ice cold tone. "As in Pecos Bill? Cowboy a' Texas legend raised by coyotes, rode a black tornado, a mountain lion, an' the orneriest horse ever lived? Used a six foot rattler as a bullwhip, taught th' coyotes how t' howl, an' strangely enough, invented peanut brittle?"
"S-sounds vaguely familiar," Jack croaked.
"Well, that was my great-grandpa. An' some a' his talents run in th' family." Johnny Betty flexed her arm up and down, illustrating just how little effort it took to keep Jack hoisted over her head. "An' I hate it when people laugh at my name."
"Hoo-gay." Jack choked.
Johnny Betty's expression softened. Jack was sure she would have let him down then if a taser hadn't hit the superhuman girl square between the shoulder blades. Electricity being the friendly soul it was, Jack got to share the shocky fun.
The last thing he remembered was hitting the ground hard.
"This should be done with the skull of a high druid, the toe bones of a holy virgin and be performed under a full moon." Phooka said, still sulking.
"I care not for your silly sense of theatrics, elf. Just find Jack." Chase snarled.
"See, this is why no one respects the Old Ways. You had to wait a month to perform a spell properly, you respected the damn thing." The kelpie continued.
"I'm sure you could make it work with anything, Phooka." Matty said loyally.
Once the fairy had agreed to help, the petite blond had dropped right back into his role as adoring submissive. The mortal youth stretched up and placed a kiss on Phooka's cheek.
"You're the best, baby."
The kelpie sighed, still not ready to let go of snit, but preening under the praise.
"All right." The elf ventured out to the overgrown backyard. Holding up his tools, the kelpie closed his eyes.
"By the spirits above and the spirits below,
By the spirits within and the spirits without,
Earth and Air and Water and Fire,
East and West and North and South.
Around and about and all the spirits present in this place, I call upon your wisdom.
Well met by -"
The elf paused and glared up at the midday sun.
"Broad daylight." He snarled sarcastically.
Behind him, Chase Young cleared his throat meaningfully. Phooka heaved another sigh and lifted the container in his hands.
"Gathered spirits, lend your power to this"
Another long-suffering sigh.
"Cheerfully decorated cereal bowl."
"Hey, don't knock Betty Boop," Matty said with a grin.
"Fill this container with your essence, infuse these -"
Phooka inspected the contents of the cereal bowl.
"Extremely tacky clip on earrings."
"My Mom's," Matty murmured to Chase.
"Lend your power to these objects! Give us knowledge beyond mortal sight!
Find that which has been stolen!"
The kelpie threw down the tacky earrings onto the bare ground, then bent over them and studied them carefully.
"Michigan. Upper Peninsula. A little island off of . . . . Beaver Island? He's all right, but he's being held against his will." The kelpie reported.
A dark smile creased Chase's face.
"Excellent. Put some clothing on, Phooka. Your contribution is not at an end."
Jack regained consciousness slowly, as if he wasn't sure it was worth the trouble. Once awake, he still wasn't sure. His body still throbbed from the pain of electrocution. It added to the already excruciating pain in his broken finger until the albino youth could do little more than whimper.
"Shut up," A voice growled. "If I wanted t' listen t' something whine, I'd get a puppy."
Jack risked opening his eyes. He was in a small room, bare to the point of being called a cell, with two bunks along opposite walls. Johnny Betty was stretched out on the opposite bunk, her boots propped up on the footboard and her hands folded across her stomach. Her hat was gone.
"Where are we?" Jack asked.
"Back at Camp Brainwash. This is where they put the kids that physically rebel." JB paused, giving a pissed off rumble. "They lost my hat."
"Yeah, that's a shame. You sound like you've been here before." Jack said, taking inventory of the room. It didn't look like the door had a keypad on the inside.
"I put a youth volunteer in th' hospital aft'r they tried that 'sexual role-playing' bullshit." The dark haired girl stated calmly.
"'Sexual role-playing?'" Jack echoed uneasily. "What's that?"
"Oh, that's where they make ya wear these body stockin', then they pair you up boys n' girls and make ya act out havin' sex." JB sighed, scratching her nose.
"W-Whaaat?! That's like . . .molestation! Or sexual assault, or something!"
"I call it time t' fight."
"I can't take this! I'm very sensitive and I bruise easily and I'm engaged and my fiancee's very jealous!"
JB sighed heavily and rolled onto her side.
"Hey! You're like, super-powered or something! Why can't you bust us out of here?!" Jack demanded.
"An' go where? I scouted around when I was out; we're on an island an' that water's cold."
Jack fell silent for a moment. JB sighed again, resting against the thin mattress.
"Worse part is, I have t' stick around an' listen t' these assholes tell me to stop lustin' after girls when I like boys just fine."
"If you're straight, why'd you get sent here?" Jack asked, still thinking.
"'Cause I have standards." Johnny Betty stated. "I don' like th' boys I go t' school with 'cause they're all dicks. I ain't gonna let 'em try anything with me unless they treat me sweet and bein' nice t' a girl you're tryin' t' score with ain't cool. So I get labeled a lesbian fer havin' standards. If I went home, I'd just end up here again."
"How would you like a job?" Jack asked.
"A job?" JB looked over her shoulder. "What kind of a job?"
"Be my bodyguard. Get me out of here and I can get a hold of Chase. We'll head back to China and I'll spend like a week in his bed getting sexed into the next century and . . and. . .and you can even be in my wedding!"
JB gave him a look.
"And I'll pay you?" Jack offered.
A smile finally graced the dark-skinned girl's face.
"Now you're talkin'"
On the other side of the planet, Cecilia Spicer opened the door to her son's basement lab. She was still torn over the decision to send Jack off to that 'rehabilitation' camp. Jack was such a weird boy as it was; if he had managed to land a multimillionaire, who cared if it was a man? In fact, now that she had time to think the situation over, if she had known earlier that Jack swung that way, she would have taken the time to instruct him on the proper way to catch a rich man's eye.
Cecilia descended the steps casually, even though she was alone. If Jack's lover had gifted him with a ring worth four million dollars, what other little trinkets he had showered on the youth?
The woman stopped abruptly.
On the floor of Jack's lair . . .no, carved into the floor of Jack's lair were the words:
YOU TOOK HIM FROM ME. I WILL NOT TOLERATE THIS. SEE YOU SOON.
Cecilia turned and fled back up the stairs.
"Jonathon!"
