The War of Odds Read online

  Sara blushed. Nate was so gorgeous and so sweet there was no way she could bring herself to speak about the strange situation she found herself in. She opened her mouth to say that nothing was wrong, nothing at all, when her stomach did another slow flip. “Ugh,” she uttered, as the little bell above the door jingled and three women walked in the door.

  All three of them stopped in the waiting area and studied Sara and her friends. One was elderly, with long gray hair plaited into a braid and coiled at the base of her neck. She might have been pretty once but now her gray eyes were glacial and seemed to pierce Sara’s heart like needles.

  The other two women were younger and quite beautiful. One had long black hair and green eyes, and the other was as fair as sunlight, with golden eyes and tawny freckles. Both of them, however, were encased in shadows that pulsed sickeningly with murky green light. Sara’s soul shrank from them in fear and revulsion.

  She knew, instinctively, that she was in mortal danger. Turning to her two new friends, Sara said, “You guys, this is going to sound really weird, I know, but I have to leave. I’m afraid to go by myself, though. Will you come with me?”

  Both Nate and Chloe stared at her face for a moment and then stood up. Nate threw a few dollars on the table, and called out to Cindy, “Something’s come up, Cindy. We’ve got to go. See you in a couple of days”

  “Okay, Nate,” she replied. “Remember, we need you to come in at 2:00, rather than 4:00 on Thursday, okay?”

  “Okay, see you then… Bye!” Nate took Sara’s hand and the teenagers walked out the door as the witches watched.

  Chapter 9

  Sara and her friends walked quickly to Chloe’s house and locked the doors once they were inside. Sara was trembling with fear. Twice she had looked over her shoulder as they left the restaurant but as far as she could tell, the witches stayed put.

  Now, Nate and Chloe were looking at her with doubt, as if they really DID think she was nuts. Knowing that she had some explaining to do, Sara took a deep breath and told her new friends what had happened last night after she left the café to go home, and what happened this morning as she walked into town. She told the story in fits and starts, describing as accurately as she know how what the fae were like, what they asked of her, and what she needed to do.

  She watched her friend’s faces closely to see if one of them might jump up and call the funny farm folks, with their strait jackets to come and haul her away. Surprisingly, though, both of them seemed open to what she said. Chloe let Sara tell her story and after the girl was finished, she said, “I have a weird story to tell, too.”

  Her pale cheeks were red as she began speaking, “My mom was really sick with the flu when she told me this story, so I figured she was just having a…you know, a fever dream, or something. She thought she was going to die, I think. She was really sick, with the Swine flu and had a 104 degree temperature.”

  Chloe stood up and started pacing back and forth in front of the couch. “Anyway, she said that my dad was an elf.” She stared at Sara and Nate, measuring their reaction, but the two teenagers just shrugged and told her to continue her story.

  “My mom said that one night she was studying for final exams in medical school when this beautiful man sat down next to her on the park bench. She was outside in the common area and it was just getting dark. At first, she felt kind of scared, like something was really off about him but after a little while she felt happier than she ever had in her life.” Chloe paused and said, “Now it really gets weird.”

  “My mom was kind of out of it when she told me about this, but she said that she went away with the man and saw all sorts of wonders. She danced with the fairies and the elves, ate their food, and lived in their castles. Eventually, she fell in love with the elf, whose name was Soth, and had a long, happy life with him. She was so in love she didn’t know who, or even where she was for the longest time. She didn’t care, either. Then one day she woke up, and he was gone.”

  Chloe sat down on a chair, and continued, “My mom cried and cried when she told me this, you guys. I know she was ill, but she meant every word she said to me. She claimed that some students had found her passed out on that park bench and took her to a hospital, but the doctors could find nothing wrong with her, so they released her to go home.

  “Three weeks later she found out she was pregnant with me,” Chloe stared at them before adding, “She told me that she was a virgin.”

  Sara remembered the two times she thought she saw wings on her friend’s back, and nodded in sympathy. Nate got up from where he sat and hugged his friend. “You never told me that story, Chlo.” Then he simply turned to Sara and said, “So you want us to come along with you on this mission?”

  Sara nodded. “I hope you will, at least, come with me so you can see what I’m talking about. I’m not so sure about you coming along though. They made it clear that it will be dangerous. I don’t want either one of you getting hurt.”

  Nate said, “I’m in”, but Chloe looked worried. “Did you say that we won’t be gone long? I don’t want my mom to worry.”

  Sara shrugged and said, “That’s what the nymph told me. She said that they could bend time. You guys, I really don’t know if we can trust them, or not. What I do know, though, is that they were practically begging us for help. Do want to give it a shot?”

  Chloe thought about it for a moment longer and then nodded. “Yes, let’s do it. Just give me a minute to pack.” She walked upstairs, and Nate said, “I’ve got to go and throw some stuff together too. Also, I want to be sure that Mike has enough to eat for a few days. My mom mainly forgets that dogs need to eat.”

  Sara sat and waited in Chloe’s living room, wondering if she was going crazy. She tried to imagine her embarrassment when they all just stood by the side of the road and waited for…nothing. She wondered if she had the courage to seek help if she found out that it was all just a hallucination… a figment of her imagination.

  Sara stood up and started pacing the floor. She was considering blowing the whole thing off, when she heard a crack of thunder in the sky overhead that was so loud, so percussive that all the china in the hutch flew together with a crash. The sound of breaking glass accompanied the roar and hiss of the TV, which turned blue and then black as smoke rolled out the back of it.

  There was another loud boom as lightning zipped through the sky and thunder followed its path. A warm, balmy morning that turns into a snowstorm, and now this! Sara thought, remembering the cat’s words, “these are magical occurrences…”

  She checked to make sure the television set wasn’t on fire and then rushed to the window and looked outside. Trees were bent over and Sara saw garbage cans, rubbish and branches flying down the street. The sun was shining brightly but clouds raced madly across the sky, sending snow, hail and rain down on to the land. Nate ran up the street with his dog Mike by his side and Sara rushed to the front door to let them in. Once inside Nate said, “Sara, I’ll go but I can’t leave Mike alone. He could be hurt and my mom won’t let him in the house.”

  Sara nodded in agreement, as Chloe ran down the stairs with a backpack slung over her shoulders. Her eyes were huge as she exclaimed, “Wow, quite the storm!”

  “Yeah, are you ready to go?” Sara asked and Chloe replied, “Yeah, I was going to write a note to my mom, but I wouldn’t know where to start. Let’s just hope that those faeries weren’t lying about bending time!”

  A few minutes later, the three teenagers and one dog made their way down the road. They were snowed on, blown around and drenched by rain. It felt as if the elements were fighting their progress but the kids gritted their teeth and finally found themselves at the place where Sara had left her pack.

  She knew they were early for the rendezvous, but she hoped someone was watching out for them. Then she wondered if she had messed up by bringing two companions, instead of one, and no one had ever said that it was okay to bring a dog. Suddenly, Sara knew that this was never going to work and she
almost suggested that they all just proceed to her house, which was only about a half mile away.

  She opened her mouth to yell her idea over the howling wind and saw that hateful black Cadillac coming up the road fast. Her stomach twisted and she shouted, “Get down! Get down off the road and into those trees, you guys! Hurry!”

  Nate looked over her head, saw the car Sara had described earlier, and let out a shout. He took both girls arms in his hands and propelled all three of them off the wood and deeper into the trees. Mike, the dog, faced the approaching vehicle and a snarl lifted his lips. The hackles on his back rose in fury and he lowered his head as the car screeched to a halt on the road.

  Nate tried to call his dog off. “Mike! Come on buddy… COME!” His words were lost to the banshee wail of the wind, however, and Mike the dog crept closer to the idling vehicle. Then a window slid down and a pale hand extended some sort of metal rod toward the animal. The teenagers watched in shock as the dog jerked hard, as if it had just been kicked. Then it lifted his head and howled in agony before falling to the asphalt.

  Nate gasped as he saw his beloved pet’s eyes roll up in its head and its tongue roll out of its mouth. Mike the dog was dead. Nate screamed in anger, and denial, “No!” and started to run up on the road, but the girls held him back.

  “Nate,” Sara cried, “don’t do it! I am so… so sorry about Mike, but those people will kill you next, I know it!”

  Nate stopped and hung his head in grief, while Sara and Chloe tried to lead him backwards into the trees. Then, they heard a voice, “Get in here, NOW!”

  It was Muriel, the wood nymph, and about thirty sprites, dressed in full armor and carrying every weapon conceivable; long wooden swords, bows and arrows, wooden balls and knives.

  Nate was weeping still, but he let himself be lead into the land of faery without complaint. They stopped long enough to watch as Muriel pointed her stick at the car. For a moment, there was an almost overwhelming sensation of static electricity in the air, and then a red bolt of lightning shot out of the stick and enveloped the Cadillac.

  The red light etched its way over the car and the teens could hear the sound of screams from where they stood, fifty feet away. One of the witches opened the car door and fell out onto the pavement writhing in anguish as the red light embraced her and turned her green aura to ash.

  “It’s done, let’s go,” Muriel snarled.

  The frightened teenagers followed the nymph in to forest. They were in the strange land of the fae now and Nate wiped his eyes, trying to observe his surroundings as they followed the magical creatures deep into the woods. His heart was broken, but the death of his dog only made him more determined to follow this evil to its source and vanquish it forever. He had believed Sara (sort of) when she told her outlandish story, but now it was personal.

  He saw the evil oozing out of the black car, and saw what that woman’s rod did to his dog. He watched the little sprites and tried not to look too closely at the nymph, whose body was clearly visible through her diaphanous robes. Looking to the side, Nate saw an army of cats, all of them wearing metal armor, and little cone-shaped helmets on their heads.

  He held the girl’s hands in his as they made their way to the sprite’s village. He noticed that many of the creatures cast sympathetic glances his way, and one little chipmunk called out, “We are sorry about your dog friend!” Another chipmunk scolded, “Enough out of you, Henry! Let him go in peace!” Both of the animals disappeared into a hole in the tree, and Nate felt his heart start to beat again.

  All of the creatures here were worried, frightened and grieving. Still, they were determined to stop the darkness from spreading any further into the land of fae and man. Nate knew now that he too, would do whatever it took to keep the kind of evil that took his beloved pet away, from spreading any further.

  Chapter 10

  Weeks passed as Sara and her friends underwent training for what was to come. They lived in temporary shelters just outside the sprite’s village. Although the fae lands were beautiful and filled with wonders, the teens had little time to enjoy themselves, or see the sights.

  Every morning, a wood nymph came to accompany Sara to Muriel’s house. The nymph witch resided in a huge, ancient tree whose trunk was at least thirty feet in circumference. Sara had no doubt there were some magical manipulations at work within the tree house. Depending on the day, and what was needed for her lessons, the interior of Muriel’s home would be small and cozy, or as big as a football field.

  Sara knew it was going to be a long day if the house was large… that meant she was expected to work out, hard. She learned the art of swordplay and knife throwing, climbing, fire building, and hand-to- hand combat. Muriel demanded that Sara build her strength by running, lifting weights (large rocks), and stretching her body into pretzel-like postures.

  Sara was, if anything, too thin for her height, but she had always hated gym class and avoided physical activity as much as possible. The first day she showed up for lessons, Muriel pinched the muscles in Sara’s scrawny arm with disgust and muttered, “Well, this is going to change.”

  Sara had never sweated so much in her life. The first few nights after her physical training sessions left every muscle and tendon in her body quivering with painful fatigue. She came close to quitting in those early days, but her body grew stronger. The sight of her two friends grunting and sweating along with her, however, gave Sara the strength to carry on.

  Chloe and Sara shared a tent, and Chloe’s cheerful smile kept Sara from giving in to frustrated despair. Although Chloe trained outside of Muriel’s domain, Sara often saw her friend in the company of two elves. A tall, purple-eyed elf named Rondel and his sister, Rowena showed up three days after the teenager’s arrival in the sprites village.

  Sara was shocked to see Muriel actually grin as the two elves approached and asked Sylvan if they might offer assistance. “They’re nice?” Sara asked her instructor and the nymph rolled her eyes.

  “Nice,” she scoffed. “Nice is not a word one uses to describe elves, child. It is good, though, to have one by your side. Elves are the fae’s warriors and these two will be a welcome addition to our small army.” Muriel studied the brother and sister, before snapping, “Do it again, Sara. I want you to climb that tree twice as quickly as last time. Now GO!”

  From the time the elves arrived, they took special interest in Chloe’s training. Sara watched, sometimes, as her friend sparred with Rowena, and practiced swordplay with Rondel. The brother and sister paid particular attention to the muscles in Chloe’s back, and one day while taking a break from her lessons, Sara saw her friend actually rise up into the air while engaged in a wrestling match with the female elf.

  Rondel shouted in triumph as Chloe squeaked in alarm and fell back down to the ground. For a moment, Sara saw the fragile wings on the girl’s back fluttering frantically, and then she was just Chloe again, sweating and giggling helplessly as the elves cheered.

  Dwarves from the mountain known as, Frost Beard were training Nate. They were gold miners and renown throughout the land as being both physically and magically the strongest of the dwarven tribes. They often worked side by side with human miners, without the later even being aware of their existence. The dwarves would shore up a crumbling pillar, or fix a stream of water that threatened to undercut a gold vein, thus making the deep, underground gold mines a safer place to work and harvest the yellow ore.

  Nate discovered, to his dismay, that the dwarves were unbelievable quick, painfully strong and quite unfriendly. He was given a small tent in the dwarf encampment, just outside of Sylvan’s village. The first day of training started with being physically snatched out of his pallet by four sturdy young dwarves, hauled out to the fire pit and dumped unceremoniously on the ground.

  Two sticks were tossed in his direction and the fierce little general known as Fang growled, “Your training begins now…”

  What followed was the worst beating Nate ever received. He had used the
sticks as well as he could under the onslaught, but he was no match for the dwarves, who took those same sticks and beat him black and blue. The fact that the dwarven soldiers were not even half his size, made the young man feel both ashamed and furious.

  The murder of his dog Mike, however, kept Nate focused. He was determined to do whatever it took to stop evil like that from spreading. He took his beating with a smile, and so much courage that the dwarves couldn’t help but be impressed. Three weeks had passed since that first horrible night of testing by the fire-pit, and now Nate was holding his own in the training field.

  He learned to hold his sticks high and to stab downward when attacked, rather than swing wildly and miss his target more often than not. Whenever he did manage to deliver a blow to one of his attackers, cheers and hoots of praise filled the encampment, even as jeers of scorn rained down on his victim.

  Sara sometimes spied on Nate and his trainers, when she was granted the rare rest period between physical and mental training. To her eyes, Nate looked like a young prince from a book of fairy tales. His long, dark brown hair fell in sweaty ringlets past his shoulders, and his young body, although covered in scrapes and bruises was lithe and beautiful. His skin was turning dark brown from the sun and his teeth gleamed brightly in either a smile of joy or a grimace of pain.

  She was surprised to hear that the dwarves had set upon Nate the second night of his training and removed his braces, claiming that the metal in the boy’s mouth was not only negating their magic, but sapping Nate’s growth as well. Over time, the dwarves had grown fond of the boy, and were determined to bolster his defenses and his ability to win in close battle, even if it killed him.

  Well, Sara sighed softly, it certainly isn’t killing him. Looking over her shoulder, she saw Muriel step outside and look around for her missing pupil. Sara sighed again, this time in dread. There were two aspects of her training, the physical and the mental. Of the two methods, the mental was far more painful and emotionally draining.