for winter. I took a breath, and Pierce was suddenly crouching beside me.
"I swan, Rachel," he muttered, peeved. "You're going to be the death of me again."
Immediately I set a circle around both of us. "I thought you said you liked what scared you." There was a surge of noise from the pixies, and I peeked to see them beating the butterfly-winged fairies back, the fight rising higher as they both struggled for supremacy. The bobbing color of the fairies' wings was encroaching from over the graveyard in a highly structured pattern that went up as well as from side to side. Surrounding the stump between us were darting shapes shedding sparkles to confuse and misdirect. If one didn't know that a battle for survival was going on, it'd be breathtaking.
"Ivy?" I shouted while rubbing the dirt from my palms. Pierce took my arm and I jerked from him, only to find him take a stronger grip. "What are you doing?" I snapped.
"Hold still." His lips pressed together, and I gasped when a surge of ley-line energy spilled into me. I pulled back at the invasion, shoving him when I felt a hot pulse of pain from my arm where he was gripping me. We fell over together, but he wouldn't let go and we broke my circle. Only now did he let go, and I jerked when a new, green-tinted circle enclosed us.
"What is your problem!" I exclaimed. Great, now my knees were hurt and wet.
"Poison," he said as he huddled close to the old wood. "I burned it up within you."
Embarrassed, I looked down. There was a tiny hole in my shirt, the edges charred. The skin under was pink with the hint of a sunburn surrounding a nasty bruise I didn't remember getting. Oh. "Urn, thanks," I stammered. "Sorry."
"Do tell," he said, his jaw tight and not meeting my eyes.
Peeking around the barrier, I saw a cluster of brightly colored wings rising over the protection of the shed. "Jenks! Behind you!" I exclaimed, then jerked behind the wood as three spears bounced off Pierce's bubble. Cripes, I had nothing for fairies. Nothing!
There was a high, tinkling shout, and I carefully peered around the table to see Jax's wings turn a shocking shade of yellow. As if it was a signal, a slew of pixy arrows rained down. The encroaching vanguard of purple-winged fairies went down with tattered wings. With a bloodthirsty yell, six of Jenks's younger kids dove out of my old teakettle, hidden under the shrubs, and attacked them with cold steel and vicious shouts. Three seconds later, the fairies lay dead and his children were giving one another high fives. Holy shit. Jenks's kids were savages!
"Rache!" Jenks barked above me, and I looked up, my expression still holding the horror. "What are you doing out here?" he asked, rising up and then down to avoid a spear.
"Taking notes," I said, nudging Pierce to take his bubble down long enough to give Jenks a place to rest. "Have you seen Ivy?" God, if she was injured somewhere...
The haze of green-tinted ever-after blinked out of existence, then returned. Jenks hovered before me with the scent of crushed dandelions, bringing my senses awake and filling me with the need to move. "She's practicing her moves up front," he said cryptically. Worried, I started to rise, only to be jerked back down. "She's fine!" Jenks said, laughing at my fear. "Don't go looking for her. She's vamped out." He smiled, looking devilish. "Kinda scary.
"Pierce," Jenks said, surprising me. "Rache can't do anything here. Jump her out."
"I can't jump anyone but myself," Pierce said. "Only a demon or a skilled gargoyle, which Bis is not, can carry another."
A familiar scream ripped through the air, lifting over the fairy battle cries and the breathy sounds of tattered wings struggling for lift. Jenks lifted up to the limits of Pierce's bubble, and both Pierce and I looked around the edge of the table.
"Sweet mother of Mary," Pierce whispered as Ivy vaulted over the wall between the street and the church, her curved sword in her good hand. Dodging tiny spears, she took out two fairies with ugly splats of sound. Shaking them off, she rolled to the shed, eyes wild and hair settling to hang perfectly as her back slammed up against the old wood. Holy crap, she was like Mary Lou Retton on Brimstone!
"Let me out, Rache!" Jenks shouted, but I wasn't the one holding the circle.