Six Guardians of the Underworld

Chapter 6

His jowls were jiggling as he argued back. "The result was unprecedented. What happened to her was…unthinkable."

That was his totally lame excuse. Unprecedented…Unthinkable.

"And since when has s**t not been unprecedented or unthinkable where I'm concerned?" Spittle was flying from my lips. He should have known I would need that extra protective layer, that extra spice added to his brew. I was literally The Unprecedented, Unthinkable Jayne. How could he have been so stupid? Careless? It was hard to believe it was a mistake, really. Once again, Red's motivations were seriously questionable.

I looked out over the crowd, angry not just at Red, but at every single one of those naïve fucknuts who'd stood idly by while everything went haywire around them. If they'd been badass fae—fae of action—I never would have gone to Red in the first place; but noooo…all they ever wanted to do was have the gray elves analyze the s**t out of things until those things were no longer an issue. Their favorite strategy was to stick their heads in the sand and hope their guardian angels would swoop down from the Overworld to save them.

"Am I the only one here who feels like this entire community is flying around by the seat of its pants? Afraid to do what needs to be done? Totally unprepared and disorganized?" I looked around, waiting for someone to speak up.

Tim was suddenly in my ear, talking softly. "Not that I want to stop this freight train of awesome truthiness from flying down the tracks, but you maaaay want to chill on the shrill a little. They tend to listen better when things aren't shrieked at their faces."

No one said a word. All I got back were expressions of shock. Even Sam remained silent, although I could sense she didn't disagree.

I took a deep breath to calm myself. Tim was right; it was not going to help my situation to piss everybody off. I knew this, and yet I'd let my temper get away from me. Dammit. I was already forgetting my new plan of action, to be smarter and more mature. Better chill it before you kill it. Time to grow up or shut up. I lifted my hands in surrender, praying silently to the universe for more patience. "Listen, everyone. Like I mentioned a minute ago, I need a shower. I can't even tell you how long it's been since I've been clean. It's to the point that it's affecting my mood, and that's not good for anyone. Let me just…do this. I'll be back out in a few minutes."

I dropped my hands and strode toward my bedroom, forcing people to move out of my way or get knocked over and possibly covered in my stink. I checked faces as I went by: Aidan and Jared were there. Scrum and Sam I could sense behind me. I identified several Council members as I got closer to my bedroom door, too, but I couldn't see Tony or Spike anywhere. It was starting to freak me out. They should've been the first ones waiting for me when I walked in the door.

I paused halfway across the room. "Tim, where are Tony and Spike? Don't play games with me, just tell it like it is." A sick feeling was building in my gut, making it burn and roil.

"Let's just get to the bathroom. You can de-stinkify yourself while I give you the lowdown on everything and everyone."

He didn't sound like his jovial, sassy self at all. It made me feel even sicker. "Fine. I can wait about another thirty seconds, but that's it."

As I was about to pass my changeling friends, Becky stepped forward and held out her arms. She had tears glistening in her eyes. "I was so afraid you weren't coming back." She wrapped her arms around my stiff body.

I was afraid to hug her back, not because of the potential for emotional overload, but because it would have required that I lift my arms again, and there was enough pit stink under those babies to put the whole room in the gas chamber. "You may not want to do that. I smell pretty bad."

"I don't care. I love you and I missed you."

Ever the sucker for a heartfelt I-Love-You, I risked curling people's eyelashes with my stench by hugging her back. I let her go after five seconds, though. A girl can only handle so much, and I was making myself ill with my fermented odor. "Seriously, Beck, I need to get into the shower. And I need to pee like a racehorse, too."

She pulled away, tears running down her cheeks. "I understand. Do you want me in there?"

"No. Just him." I nodded at the pixie who was hovering just in front of me.

She bowed her head and backed away.

Finn draped an arm over her shoulders as he spoke to me. "Good to have you back, Mother."

I shook my head at him. "Finn…Good to see you too, dude. Just call me Jayne, though, okay?"

He put his fist on his chest and dropped into a half bow. I was guessing that meant that the Jayne thing wasn't going to be happening anytime soon, at least not with the green elves. Sigh.

Standing at the door to my bedroom were the twins, Felicia and Theresa. They looked like hell. Neither of them were wearing any makeup, and their hair was lying flat against their scalps—none of the usual shine, body, or waves in sight. Where before they'd always looked like shampoo commercial models, they now looked practically homeless. It made me stop in my tracks. "What the heck happened to you guys?"

Neither of them responded with words; they just pulled me into a three-way hug. They didn't even smell the same. Or maybe my stench was too powerful for their usual sweet perfumes to bust through.

"Somebody'd better say something," I warned. "You're starting to freak me out." I paused but nothing happened. "Seriously. Don't piss me off. I'm on an a*s-hair trigger here."

"We're just glad you're home," Theresa said, sniffling. She was staring at the ground.

I pulled back and looked Felicia in the eye. "What's going on? Where's Tony?"

She shook her head and wiped tears from her cheeks. "He's around." I waited for more, but that was all she had to say on the matter.

I wasn't totally dense. There was a ton of evasiveness going on, not just with Felicia, but with everyone else, too. They had bad news for me, that much was clear, and there was no doubt in my mind that I was about to hear some s**t that was really going to piss me off, once Tim and I were alone in the bathroom. And I really, really wanted to get to the bottom of that bullshit, too…but more than that, I needed to look, smell, and feel like a fae girl again, and not like some escaped mental patient who'd gone swimming in the Eternal Bog of Stench. I needed to have all my wits about me when Tim hit me with the truth.

I pointed at the twins as I turned and reversed myself into my bedroom. "You two don't go anywhere. I want to talk to you when I get out of the bathroom. I just need, like, fifteen minutes, max." Heck…I didn't have hair anymore, which meant I might be able to cut my bathroom time down by another five minutes. Sweet. "Make it ten."

They both nodded and gave me half-bows as they moved out of the way. I really wanted to slap someone when I saw that. More idiocy, now coming from the fae who were supposed to know me best. Everyone was acting like I was a different person all of a sudden—like royalty or something. Was it because of the time traveling? The dragons? Or all this mature talking s**t? What was with all the bowing, anyway? I was not down with that at all, especially since I was fresh off a trip into my past where my personality flaws were once again brought front and center for me to examine in detail and be embarrassed about. I wanted to yell at everyone to stop acting so weird around me, but instead, I decided to do something very un-Jayne-like. I walked into my empty bedroom a

nd kept my mouth shut, closing the door softly behind me.

I would've been happy to see Spike lying in the bed waiting for me, but apparently he was busy elsewhere. My mattress was empty save for the quilt and two pillows. This was typical for Spike, to be running around in the forest doing weird cube-eye stuff while the rest of the fae world panicked. It didn't matter to me that he wasn't there, though. Not really. Our relationship wasn't one where I had to have him with me every second to know how he felt about me, and vice versa. It was probably the only truly mature thing about me. I would catch up with him soon enough. And I was kind of glad he wasn't around when I was looking like this. It was bad enough he'd seen me in Crocs, sporting the escaped mental patient look. He didn't need to smell me too.

I waited for Tim to fly past me into the bathroom before I shut the door behind us. He stood on the edge of the sink while I looked in the mirror at my haggard face. "Oh my good God. I look terrible." I leaned in and pushed my eyes to the sides, my lips up and down, my cheeks backward and forward. "Jesus. I look like I'm thirty already."

"We'll invest in some wrinkle cream later, Lellemental. We need to talk about more important things right now than your rapidly aging skin." Tim started pacing back and forth next to the soap dish. "First things first…let's talk Tony…"

CHAPTER FOUR

I STARED AT my reflection in the bathroom mirror as Tim's words washed over me. I couldn't bear to look at him, knowing just the sight of my friend as he delivered this bad news would make me start bawling. I let my eyes focus on everything and nothing at the same time so my brain could shift into neutral.