1
Never had I been so elated to see Sadie. The Enforcer had a reputation for competent ferocity, and if she weren’t such a badass I might have been tempted to run to her and throw my arms around her like she was my salvation. As it was, I stood there staring at her and her companions, barely able to believe that my struggles were finally over.
Enforcer Headquarters had assigned her as my protector. I had no idea if that had changed in the time I was gone, but if I knew Sadie, it wouldn’t matter to her whether I was her official assignment or not; she’d keep me safe.
And now that I was back in the same dimension Gorky Gower inhabited, my safety would be in question. Last I saw him, he’d enlisted dark mages in his employ to link him to my pendant. Though the jewel’s magic was now inert, it was possible that Gorky’s dark mages would still be alerted of its presence.
Which meant they’d be alerted to my presence.
Hence my great relief to see Sadie, Damon, and Orangesicle—as my friends and I referred to the pygmy troll with the fluorescent orange fro-hawk, pissy attitude, and monster crush on Sadie.
“Where the fuck have you been?” Sadie accused as she closed the distance between us with swift, efficient strides.
Why jolted awake at the sound of her voice and blinked open his eyes in what appeared to be a confused daze. Val paced between Why and me, his hooves clip-clopping on the rock beneath us, casting nervous glances at Sadie and her crew as they stalked toward us.
“We’ve been looking for you everywhere. And I do mean everywhere. The academy’s been in an uproar over your disappearance. We thought you might be dead! Do you have any idea how insane your mom’s been?”
Damon, who was the most chill Enforcer I’d ever met, nodded in agreement, making his waist-long dreadlocks slide across his back. He was tall, muscular, and relaxed in that way people were when they knew they could break every bone in your body a hundred different ways but, for the most part, chose not to. Today he wore cut-off sleeves, revealing dark-skinned muscles despite the chilly temperatures—we shifters tended to suffer the cold less than humans—and straps crisscrossed over his chest, holding up two long, slim cases. Damon never liked to be far away from his guns. He was one of the few members of the paranormal community who could actually use guns and have them perform the way they were intended. For the rest of us, our power interfered with them, making them jam or misfire. Either way, as a norm, we avoided them at all costs.
He was the perfect partner for Sadie, unless you asked Orangesicle, who was threatened by the male Enforcer even if he wouldn’t admit to it. But no one asked Orangesicle. And every time I’d come across Sadie and the pygmy troll, she was telling him to get lost.
Sadie, Damon, and Orangesicle stared first at me, and then at my two companions—three, if you counted the unhatched dragon egg I cradled under one arm.
Orangesicle was wearing the loincloth every pygmy troll on staff at the Magical Creatures Academy wore. He too didn’t seem concerned with the cold; the pygmy troll was probably too fierce to allow something like the weather to have any kind of power over him. His usual choice of attire exposed round little buttocks, a whole lot of round, firm belly, and far too much skin—so they couldn’t find Val too weird. And they already loved Why. Everybody did.
The pandacorn cub rolled up and sat, facing them, cute despite the blue and now red tinge to his fur from Sedona’s terracotta-colored dirt.
“Jas?” Sadie followed up, her tone softening as she tipped her head to study me, her blond ponytail swinging. “Are you all right? It’s not like you to be quiet like this. Did they hurt you, the fuckers?”
I blinked at her and repositioned Egg under my arm, struggling to register it all. We were back. We were safe. I’d done it. “My mom is always insane. What fuckers?”
“The ones who took you! Gorky and his slimy-ass shifters. Or his slimy-ass dark mages. They’re all pieces of shit.”
Orangesicle nodded his hearty agreement, his fro-hawk oscillating with his obvious desire for righteous vengeance. “The jerks are gonna pay.”
“Right. The assholes are def gonna pay,” I said, fully snapping myself out of my shocked relief to discover myself back at the academy—almost—and with people I could hand over my problems to.
But I shook my head. “There are no fuckers.” Maybe I wasn’t back to my full self yet. “I mean, yes Gorky is a fucker, no doubt. A huge-ass fucker. As big a fucker as fuckers get. And so are his ‘roided-out friends. But they didn’t take me anywhere. I sent myself away to protect the pendant so he couldn’t get it.”
The pendant.
Remembering it with a start, along with how it was as much of a fucker as Gorky was, I palmed my front pocket. Discovering a lump beneath the fabric of my jean shorts, I relaxed. I planned to cast the thing into the fiery depths of Mount Doom at the earliest opportunity. Just because I didn’t sense magic from it anymore didn’t mean I was trusting it. I’d rest easy only once it was melted or pulverized. I wasn’t about to be picky so long as it could never hurt another supe again.
Sadie’s brow arched as she tipped her head at me again, making her signature blond ponytail swing another time. “Wait, you’re the fucker whose ass I’ve been wanting to kick from here to hell and back?”
I snorted, realizing how much I’d missed her colorful language. Pudgester could suck it. “I’m not the fucker, Sadie, trust me. I had to send myself away or Gorky would’ve killed more people.” Images of Selene and Professor Whittle came back to me. “Did they … are they?” I sighed and spit it out. “Are Selene and Professor Whittle dead?”
My mouth dried during the few moments I waited for an answer.
“They’re fine,” Sadie said, and so much relief whooshed through me right then that I had to plop to the ground. I hadn’t allowed myself to think about them much. Worrying without any way of knowing their fate would have only driven me mad.
“How?” I asked as I spread my legs out in front of me and moved Egg to my lap.
“The sirangel’s father,” Orangesicle said in a voice a bit like sandpaper.
“He’s an angel,” I said. “Angels never come down to Earth.”
“Well, apparently they make exceptions to their rules. He came down here to get it on with her siren mother. And he came down to save their daughter’s life.”
“And the professor’s…?”
“His too. While the angel Raziel was here, he reanimated Wendell.”
I scrunched up my face in distaste. Reanimating the dead never went as planned, unless you were a necromancer, and then they didn’t care that the person who returned was never the same as the one who’d departed.
Sadie huffed. “He’s being theatrical.”
“I always like to impress my woman,” Orangesicle said, causing Sadie to roll her eyes, bringing my attention to her T-shirt. As usual, she was wearing something worth noting: an obnoxious fuchsia background with a bright green sea turtle on it. Underwater, the sea turtle was farting turtle-shaped bubbles. I couldn’t even decipher what that meant, if anything other than satisfying Sadie’s enjoyment in wearing the craziest shit.