I wiggle like a mad thing, trying to get free. Then a voice spits, muffled by metal.
“Hold still Tiny! I came to get you out of here”.
My heart stops for a full minute before it starts up again. I finally hold still.
Only my family called me Tiny, but I know none of them wear bronze helms and designer clothing. How does Longinus know me?
Steel band arms slowly loosen and set me down on the hardwood floor of the corridor. In the struggle I hadn’t even noticed: I had been lifted a foot off the floor.
I’m still too scared to turn around, but he makes me. Hands on my shoulders, he gently turns me around.
“I’m sorry for lying to you all, but I can explain later”
He takes off his helm.
“You’ve grown up Tiny”
Longinus smiles with a familiar lopsided grin and my breath catches.
Gentle golden brown eyes flecked with green, a dimpled chin and eyebrows darker than his hair. Even though his hair was darkened with sweat, I could almost swear that if it would be a reddish blonde several shades darker than mine. Hair like the twins, a face like Jules’ and my Mother’s eyes.
“Janus?” I choke, tears streaming down my cheeks.
He gives a flourishing bow and announces grandly, “The one and only, Janus Gaines! ... oof! ” He exclaims as I begin to pummel him in the stomach, punctuating each couple of punches with sobs of
“How… Why didn’t you … Where…”
I don’t think I’m actually making any impact, his tummy, like his arms is a mass of steel cabling. I finally stop, spent, and fall into him, blubbering like an idiot and holding on as if he’d disappear when I let go.
He shushes me gently, arms around me.
God, he is freakishly tall! I barely reach his chest.
“We have to go now, I’ll take you somewhere safe” He says.
I pull away from the mess I’ve made of the front of his coat and sniffle “How? You can’t ‘shift out ob dis place. I’b tried.”
He grins mischievously
“You forget Tiny, I’m Magus. We use the word ‘can’t’ rather sparingly. Now do you trust me?”
“Ob course I do” - I do so hate how I sound after a good cry.
His helmet shimmers back into place (neat trick!), and in the space between the beginning and end of an eyeblink our surroundings change.
***
We’re in what looks like the empty living room of a town house. Before I can ask any questions, the lock clicks opens and a motley collection of persons enters.
A stocky Italian looking man leads; then a svelte black girl carrying a giggling fair-haired toddler, a petite but stern looking Asian woman and finally, bringing up the van; a latino with paled bruises on his face and arms full with an impossible number of shopping bags.
Chaos ensues when they set eyes on us. The Italian pulls out a shotgun and edges the Asian woman behind him. The black girl sets the child down and steps forward.
“You!” she growls, fury writ on her face in capital letters.
My brother holds up his palms and croons genially, “Temi, remember how you said you owe me…”
She snarls and disappears in a puff of grey smoke, reappearing at the same instant a foot or so in the air in front of Janus and clocking him soundly in the helm.
He slides a good yard or so before he hits a couch and stops. His bronze helmet is indented with the imprint of her tiny fist.
“YOU KNEW EVERYTHING DIDN’T YOU? YOU TOLD ME NOTHING!” she shrieks in an odd accent.
My heart misses a beat for the umpteenth time today.
Another Magus!
That’s the only explanation for what’s happening, the only way the mighty Longinus could be decked by a tiny teenage girl.
Well, I had lost my brother before, and I wasn’t about to lose him again. I step between him and the girl.
She ceases her prowl towards him and looks at me incredulously.
“And you are?”
“August Gaines, his sister”
I hear Janus groan with despair behind me. Ok, so I guess that information wasn’t supposed to become public knowledge.
“You are one of his sisters? Are you as foolish as he is, seeking fights were none are necessary?” She says with a wry grin.
She throws me for a loop. Wasn’t she just attacking us? Her predatory tension disappears and she flashes a very white grin as she extends her arm.
“Faith Temitope Adeola. You can call me Temi, or if you insist on formality, Spider. Your brother saved my life”
Poleaxed, I stammer as I take her hand
“Nice to meet you.”
Things are getting loopier and loopier. Last I read, Spider was the uber-famous Eighthborn. But he was presumed dead, hadn’t been sighted in years.
If she was the new Spider, she would keep on shocking people like me. Everyone would assume that the Eightborn’s successor, like the Spider before him, would be male.
Before I can fully understand what is going on the kid speaks up.
“Mordred!” she chirps, clapping gaily as she skips towards me.
“Morgan, No!” The Latino warns firmly.
He makes no overt move to stop her however, probably because he hasn’t figured out where to dump the shopping bags.
Her eyes though, looking into them is like looking into endless pools...
“Kneel squire!” She says rather imperiously, and I find my body obeying.
She weaves and ducks out from under Spider’s grasp, a rather cute and determined look on her face and then holds my head between her hands.
Time slows down, pouring water suddenly turning into molasses.
She kisses me on the forehead and then looks me straight in the eyes as she murmurs, “Rise, Dame Rook”.
The last thing I see is Spider pulling the child, Morgan, away.
I shut my eyes and fall into a sea of pain. I taste blood, but don’t sense the pain of biting my own tongue.
Oddly my last rational thought is, “How on earth did Janus think this was safer than my detention cell?”
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