THE WINGS OF VALOR TEAM
Thanks to our JIT Readers
Christopher Gilliard
Dave Hicks
Diane L. Smith
“Hey, E,” Domino called as he floated backward, searching the darkness. “I get it that creepy sheds and dead clowns or whatever are your thing, but rein it in on the happy fluttering around, yeah? You’re gonna get us—”
The copper pixie shrieked and spun, which made his cousin whirl to face him and the immediate danger she expected from his cry.
“What is it, Dom?” she growled, though in pixie size, her voice was too high-pitched to intimidate anyone.
“They… It’s… Uh…” Domino pointed across the shed and squeaked, “Pixies!”
When Z saw the source of his terror, Echo was in front of the shattered mirror. She offered her brother and her cousin her usual deadpan glare.
The blue-haired pixie cleared her throat and folded her arms, relaxing since she’d figured out the mystery. “You mean those three pixies staring at us, Dom?”
“Yeah!” he whispered harshly, frozen in mid-air. He wouldn’t stop staring at the other side of the shed, even when he leaned toward his cousin and added, “They just came out of nowhere.”
“That is weird.” Z expected her cousin to realize he was mistaken, but Domino kept staring. “So is finding three more pixies in an abandoned shed who have our exact colors.”
“Not only that,” he whispers again with increasing urgency, “but that copper one? He only moves when I move. If we stay perfectly still, maybe they won’t try anything. Echo, that other one’s creeping up real close, so be careful.”
His sister and his cousin stared at him in disbelief, then Z nodded at Echo. “Show ’em who’s boss, E.”
The goth pixie twirled and shot silver light at the wall of the shed.
Domino cried out in horror a second before his sister’s magic smacked into what he clearly thought was another pixie. The tinkle of shattering glass filled the shed, then splintered fragments of mirror rained down on the floorboards, marking their arrival in the dust.
In seconds, the inside of the shed was silent and calm again, with the exception of Domino’s heavy breathing as he looked from his unamused sister to the mirror frame on the wall. Then he cocked his head, and a nervous chuckle escaped him. “I mean, I wasn’t trying to start a fight or anything, but I guess that’s one way to do it.”
“With our reflections, Dom?” Z gazed at him in disbelief, then rolled her eyes. “She sure showed them, didn’t she?”
“Hey, it’s dark in here,” he hissed back. “Plus, we have no idea what we have walked into, and I’m inclined to err on the side of caution. Don’t you think?”
“Oh, you’re inclined.” She nodded with fake enthusiasm. “Yes, of course. It all makes sense now.”
“You sound pretty sarcastic. E, doesn’t she sound sarcastic?”
Echo was just as unamused as their cousin by his attempts to deflect. In response, she snapped a remaining shard off the frame and chucked it at her brother with impeccable aim.
Domino flipped to avoid being impaled by the improvised weapon, hissing and flailing his arms before regaining his balance. “Hey! If you wanna throw knives at me, you can do that at home. I thought we came to crash the stupid Arbitum meeting.”
“We’re not crashing anything, Dom.” Z turned to the other side of the shed. Echo’s makeshift weapon had lodged between two rotting floorboards that were now a little farther apart than the rest. “That’s an important distinction, okay? No crashing. We’re sittingin.”
The copper pixie spun to face her and shrugged. “What’s the difference?”
“The opposite of drawing attention to ourselves,” she muttered absently, focused on the shard of glass sticking up. She descended toward it since something wasn’t right. Pale yellow light rising from beneath the shard cast an eerie reflection on the floor’s dirt and dust. “You know, keep our heads down, our hands to ourselves, and our mouths shut.”
“Huh. Thatdoesn’t sound very fun.”
Landing gingerly, Z shook her head. “It’s like you forgot why we’re here.”
allergies, but I have them now after all that.”
Z grinned through the last particles of dust. “It’s a trapdoor.”
“What? No. Because, hey.” Realizing he could no longer see his cousin and his sister, the copper pixie turned, then scowled at Z. “No, it’s dust, and I just inhaled enough of it to—”
“You’ll be fine.” Z clapped him on the back hard enough to make him fall into another coughing fit. Then she grabbed him by his shirt collar and yanked him forward with her, pointing at what Echo had just discovered. “Thattrapdoor.”
Domino’s eyes bulged as he stumbled forward a step, letting his cousin’s grip on his shirt hold him up. He scanned the now-obvious trapdoor, then looked at his sister.
Her boot on a clunky, half-rusted padlock looped through the trapdoor’s iron handle, Echo folded her arms and raised an eyebrow.
“Oh, that trapdoor! Ha!” He got his feet under him and pulled away from Z’s grip, then smoothed the front of his shirt. “Why didn’t you say so?”
“We’re bothsaying so,” Z added without trying to tone down her sarcasm. “I’ll bet the rest of my chicken crackers that’s exactly where the yellow-eyed Mr. Grumpy Pants who asked for the stupid password disappeared to—this Arbitum meeting we are supposed to find. Let’s get this thing open and check it out.”
Dom giggled. “Well, duh! Don’t hafta tell metwice. I’m—”
Echo’s next blast of silver energy cut off her brother’s words and also cut through the rusty iron of the heavy padlock. There was a sharp crack and a squeal of shredded metal, then the bolt popped open with a clink.
With an exasperated sigh, Domino gestured at his sister’s handiwork. “Or that.”
CHAPTER TWO
After calling the appropriate Arbitum hotline to get information about the Colorado chapter’s meeting, not to mention having come up with the right password to satisfy the magical pair of glowing yellow eyes that guarded the door to the abandoned shed, the pixies had not expected much more in the way of security. Where magicals were concerned, a simple padlock securing a secret trapdoor in the floor of an abandoned shed wasn’t an effective way to keep them out.
If that was all Z and her cousins had to deal with to get into the meeting taking place below them, it would have been suspiciously easy. So none of the pixies were surprised to find this particular trapdoor with one more layer of protection to keep them from effectively entering whatever waited for them beneath it.
Echo snatched the glowing mirror shard and chucked it across the shed. It landed with a hollow thud and a puff of dust in one corner. More dust exploded when the pixies pried open the trapdoor in unison. They all coughed, but Domino seemed to have recovered from his budding allergies, or maybe he was distracted by the yellow light bursting through the hole in the floor and blinding all three pixies.
They quickly recovered from the surprise, though, and Z took a tentative step toward the trap door. She peered down into the light and chuckled darkly. “Whatever he is, I’ll give him this much. That curmudgeonly magical with the glowy eyes playing passwordprotector at the door sure got down there freaking quickly.”
“You sure he went down there, Z?” Domino asked before swallowing thickly. “I mean, not like there are a whole lot of other places in here he could’ve gone, but this trapdoor was covered by way too much dust for him to have hopped through it before we flew inside.”
“In case you forgot this part too, we’re trying to sit in on a meeting with other magicals, dude. They’re most likely just as criminal as the wizard and his goons, but that doesn’t change what they’re capable of. As in, spells.”
“Yeah, yeah.” He dismissed her sarcasm with a wave of his hand, then stepped closer to peer down. “So, magic solved the guy’s problems. Fine. What is thatmagic supposed to solve?”
“Keeping other magicals out, if I had to guess.”
“By ‘other magicals,’ you mean us, right?”
Z shot her cousin a glance she hoped communicated their need for Domino to get real about their side mission.
Richter Sminevelle, his two hairy Kilomea sidekicks, and Brosh Greenleaf were all dead. That had only happened afterthe privates had gotten the intel they’d wanted, but if Sminevelle hadn’t gone homicidally psycho on them, Z and her cousins would probably have gotten more information about Arbitum from the now-deceased magicals.
None of that helped them now, and Z didn’t know how they were supposed to get into a secret underground meeting of the magical criminals of Arbitum’s Colorado chapter.
Still refusing to say a word in case anyone in the hidden bunker could hear her, Echo stooped to pick up a pebble from the floor beside her boot. Then she thrust her arm out over the pit, opened her hand, and let the pebble figure out the rest.
When the rock made contact with the light, it crackled like she’d thrown it at an electric fence. There was a softer flash of silver light, and then the pebble hurtled back into the air and across the shed to strike one of the interior walls.
“Well.” Z nodded at her cousin. “Thanks, E. That cleared up what the magic’s for.”
Domino squealed, “Seriously? They thought a little jolt of energy would be good enough for us?” He snickered, shaking his head as he dropped to his knees in the thick dust at the edge of the trapdoor. “What do these guys think we are, brownies?”
“Honestly, I don’t think they were expecting us to show up. Which is a big bummer, you know?”
“Especially after we called that number on the card and used the info from that dwarf with the two coonhounds that wouldn’t shut up?” The copper pixie scoffed. “Tell me about it. Hey, maybe this is just one more test for us to pass, right? Like the password. Like, if we can break through thismagic, it proves we’re as badass as we’re pretending to be and deserve to be here.”
Z clicked her tongue, then met Echo’s gaze across the hole and shrugged. “Who’s pretending?”
“You know what I mean.” He rolled his eyes, then hiked up both sleeves and wiggled his fingers over the hole in the floor. “This, though? This is easy stuff. Just takes a little finesse to get rid of whatever cute little spell those guys—”
Echo’s bright silver magic drowned out the glow coming from below when she flicked a bolt of it at the yellow light. More fierce crackling filled the air, joined by thin tendrils of muddy yellow smoke, and after a pop, the yellow light dimmed by half and then half again as the goth pixie’s magic ate the poor excuse for a security enchantment, starting at the edges and moving toward the center.
“Oh, come on.” Still on his knees, Domino tossed his hands up in exasperation and glared at his sister. “Do you have to do everything? Light the place up. Find the creepy clown paper. Blow the dust off a giant padlock and a trapdoor. Now you’re bogarting the one thing I was gonna successfully accomplish. I mean, seriously, it’s like you can’t share the credit with anyone. Right, Z?”
He glanced at his cousin, who was standing near him.
Z looked at Echo, who raised an eyebrow and said nothing. “Maybe if you were faster and kept your head in the game, she wouldn’t get to the cool stuff first.”
Domino’s jaw dropped, and he peered at his cousin and his sister, his dust-covered mop of auburn hair flopping against his forehead as
“Slade got delayed!” a new voice shouted. “That’s all I can tell you, okay?”
“Why, because that’s all you’re allowed to tell the rest of us plebes? Is that it?”
“What the hell does that even mean, Dennison?”
“Seriously? You just popped over to Earth and failed to read up on their history.”
“That’s all I was told,” the new voice responded. “So sit your asses down, shut up, and wait for the damn meeting to start like you were told! That’s why you’re all here, ain’t it?”
A grumbled chorus of assent was followed by shuffling, scooting, squeaking, and multiple sighs of annoyance.
Z met her cousins’ gazes with excited eyes. “Sounds like we’re in the right place.”
The room was dimly lit, as most secret meetings were. A single bulb hanging from a wire in the center of the ceiling was the only source of light. The walls were a mix of concrete, dirt, and planks of wood haphazardly slapped together to contain the space. The dark mouth of what looked like a tunnel opened on the opposite side of the bunker, though it didn’t seem anyone else was particularly fond of said tunnel, seeing as the chairs had been set up as far from the dark hole in the wall as possible.
On the other side of the stairs, a pseudo-circle of shaky folding metal chairs had been set up. None of the members of Arbitum’s Colorado chapter, if this was that, had chosen the three seats closest to the tunnel’s entrance, which added to the air of wary anticipation filling the room.
Though he wasn’t sitting on the chairs closest to the tunnel, the magical who was closest was a scrawny, hunched old light elf, hooked nose sticking out beneath dark, beady eyes that darted around the circle of magicals. The others shot him expectant glances as they muttered to their neighbors or shook their heads in annoyance.
A witch with a scar that drew her lower lip down into a perpetual scowl glared at the light elf as she flicked her wrist in her lap. A small orb of scarlet light appeared an inch above her palm, illuminating her body, her chair, and the magicals on either side of her in a crimson glow that didn’t do much to improve her impressive resting bitch face. The magicals on either side of her didn’t look happy about the light, either, but either they didn’t think telling her to cut it out was worth the effort or the consequences of pissing off the witch would be more annoying.
Z continued to scan the bunker for her cousins.
Domino clearly hadn’t brought his A-game today, but he had enough presence of mind not to flutter about above the meeting and announce their entrance with copper light.
Probably ‘cause Echo’s keeping him on a tight leash, Z thought. She hovered just below the ceiling as she flew toward her cousins. They’d chosen one of the support beams that kept the floor of the shed above them from caving in. Despite how rotten the wood
A Willen in a bright-green rain jacket, his baseball cap with a shiny gold bill turned sideways on his rat-like head, barked a laugh and leaned forward to stare at the gnome. “Man, you must’ve showed up to the wrong place, man. You think this is some kinda meet ‘n greet?”
More laughter. The little gnome looked terrified about answering. If he hadn’t already had a heck of a time spitting out a complete sentence without his shyness or doubt taking over, he would after this. “N-no. I mean just as, like, l-like an ice-breaker. That’s a thing, you know.”
“Sorry, buddy,” said the witch with the glowing scarlet orb hovering over her palm. “The support group for failed crime lords was the meeting beforethis one. Or maybe that’s on Tuesdays.”
Her joke was clearly too much for the shifter, who broke into hysterical laughter and slapped his knee.
“Poor guy,” Domino muttered, shaking his head in sympathy. “He’s just trying to make some friends down here.”
“Friends don’t let friends sit in on secret crime meetings, Dom,” Z whispered.
Echo leaned forward to meet her cousin’s gaze and spread her arms.
The blue pixie clicked her tongue. “Yeah, but we’re related. Doesn’t count. Plus, we’re undercover. That guy down there? He seems desperate.”
“Maybe he thought this was a good place to meet people,” Domino mused. “Make new friends. Network. Find out who would be the best ally in a fistfight. I mean, come on. If he looks like that and doesn’thave a second, he’s toast.”
The pixies’ chuckles were masked by the shifter's laughter and the chuckles of the other magicals. Everyone shifted impatiently. Whoever they were waiting for clearly didn’t hold punctuality in high regard.
“All right, Kribble,” snarled a Kilomea wearing a business suit. His words whistled between the protruding eyeteeth of his kind as he settled an unamused gaze on the light elf. “I, for one, didn’t sign up for an amateur comedy hour.”
CHAPTER FOUR
This is it, Z thought as she stared at the mouth of the tunnel like everyone else, her eyes wide. TheheadhonchoofArbitum.Thishas tobehim.WalkingintoacrappymeetinginNowhere,Colorado, that wearen’tsupposedtobeat.Whatastrokeofluck!
If she’d been sitting below with the other startled chapter members, it would have been impossible to miss the wide grin on her face, but since she was on the rafter with her cousins, Domino and Echo were the only ones who saw Z’s excitement and focus flare.
The siblings shared a silent, knowing glance, then turned their attention to the mouth of the tunnel to see who had commanded the silence and anticipation of the criminals in the room.
An expectant silence hung over the bunker for too long. Z was on the verge of shouting for somebody to say something—wasn’t that what they were all here for?—when the owner of that growl made his presence known again.
Slow, rhythmic tapping echoed down the tunnel.
The waiting magicals held their breath or shot their neighbors nervous glances or pressed back in their seats to subtly get as far from the tapping as they could.
Z wanted to get closer.
After several more taps, someone partially emerged from the tunnel. The tips of his shiny black loafers entered the circle of dim light filling the bunker. They were quickly joined by the tip of a brass
cane. Because the floor of the bunker was dirt, not the wood that apparently lined the tunnel, the final tap was a muffled thunk.
After that, two pale, long-fingered hands settled on the cane’s shiny knob, which looked like the horn of a saddle. Finally, the thin, dark, curved brim of a black hat—a fedora or maybe a bowler, it was hard to tell—entered the ring of dim light. The person stopped before the bunker’s single bulb could illuminate his features beyond the sharp point of an average-sized nose.
Whoever this newcomer was, he had a flair for the dramatic.
“What’s wrong with him?” Domino whispered, squinting as he leaned as far forward as possible without falling off the beam. “You think he’s allergic to light or something?”
Echo shrugged and shook her head.
Z wrinkled her nose. “Maybe he’s horribly disfigured and, you know, doesn’t wanna scare the guests away.”
Domino glanced at her, then they both clapped their hands over their mouths to stifle their laughter.
“Slade!” Kribble, the old light elf, squawked, pulling himself out of his stupor and startling everyone else out of theirs. He gripped the sides of his chair and started to get to his feet. “Y-you made it.”
“Don’t get up on my account,” the faceless Slade said from the mouth of the tunnel. “I’d rather you stay right where you are, Kribble. Honestly, you’ve done enough.”
It wasn’t a compliment; that was clear.
The light elf’s mouth, ringed with wrinkles, popped open in surprise, then he grunted and settled his weight back down on the chair. “I was just—”
“You were going on and on about an awful lot of nothing,” Slade grumbled. “Having you incite the members of this chapter into a belligerent frenzy makes me wonder if there’s cause for concern. Is there, Kribble?”
“My Lord Wizard!” The light elf gasped and thumped a gnarled, clawed hand on his chest as if he’d taken a shot to the heart. “I would never—”
“A simple yes or no will suffice.” The words were delivered with an exquisite calm and decorum as Slade flicked the first two fingers
of his right hand at the old magical. A burst of deep gold light bloomed around his pale fingers, and the crooked light elf choked.
Kribble’s beady eyes bulged, and both twisted hands went to his throat as he gargled and gaped like an ancient fish out of even more ancient waters.
No one else said a word.
Though only the newcomer’s shoes, cane, hat, and nose were visible, his presence was a force to be reckoned with. Either that or Kribble was so disliked that nobody was willing to risk their skin to save his.
The light elf kept choking and struggling, clawing his throat and kicking his loafers.
“Well?” Slade crooned, the first two fingers of his right still casually pointed at his victim.
He must have loosened his magical grip on the old light elf’s throat because Kribble managed to croak out a raspy, “N-no.”
“What was that? I’m not sure I heard you, Kribble. You really must speak up.”
“No, My Lord Wizard!” The light elf’s next gasp for breath brought in a lot more air than he’d gotten for the last thirty seconds. He desperately added, “No cause for concern!”
“Excellent.” The wizard’s voice took on a slimy, sadistic sweetness that made the words sound as if they had come from a different person. He slowly lowered the raised fingers.
The second he did, the gold light that had flared around Kribble’s throat rippled and winked out, and the light elf breathed deeply, then lurched forward in his chair and doubled over. His body bent so far forward that if he hadn’t still been rubbing his throat and coughing violently, it would’ve been easy to assume he’d fallen asleep in his own lap.
The wizard gave his victim a moment longer to recover. That gave every other member of Arbitum’s Colorado chapter time to remember why they didn’t want to mess with Slade. Ever.
Z and her cousins were no exception, though they reacted to the ruthless display of power and control differently. Z stared at Slade’s
person, willing the magical to take another step into the light, though he did not.
Yep, that’s the guy we need to get our hands on. The other wannabes in this meeting are useless. I’d bet anything this Slade guyknowsabouttheintelSminevellestolefromthemilitary. Wejust gottagethimalone.
She wrinkled her nose as Domino leaned toward her to whisper, “Honestly can’t say I’m his biggest fan. But that cane? That’s badass.”
Still staring at Slade, Z muttered, “Did he haveto be a wizard?”
“Now I have even more questions,” Domino continued as if she hadn’t spoken. “Like, what happens when he walks into a room that doesn’thave a tunnel, you know? I mean, do his servants have to go everywhere first to make a dark, shadowy corner for him before anyone else can enter the room?”
“I fucking hate wizards,” Z hissed, which garnered a snort from Echo as the goth pixie tried not to smile.
“Or maybe what we see is what we get?” Domino added with a shrug. “Like, the pieces of him sticking out of that tunnel are all he is. No face or body or anything, which would be totally weird, but hey. You never know, right?”
He was reasoning out what he thought about the wizard with a name but no face that anyone could see. Z might have come up with a witty reply, but their time was up.
So was Slade’s brief silence. The wizard dove into his announcements, as cool and calm as if the last few minutes had not happened.
“Now that we’ve cleared the obnoxious formalities out of the way,” he began, causing several people in the circle of chairs to grimace and exchange wary looks with their closest neighbors, “let’s get to the point, shall we? I understand that many, if not all of you, are curious as to why this meeting time was altered at the last minute. It was not because of any impatience of mine to see a single face in this room sooner than our regularly scheduled dates allowed, I assure you.”
