17
Jo-Mel
slashes the arrow in two with a swift swipe of the katana, snapping
its shaft just inches before the tip found its mark.
“No
time for that,” she says quite calmly for someone who'd just been
fired upon. “You must find and free the boy. This one is dead,
but its weavings will still have your son bound.”
“You
stay right where you are,” Monique Felani says with deadly
seriousness. She already has another arrow nocked and aimed at
Jo-Mel's head.
“I can
help. If you allow it.”
“Yeah,
well, I don't know you like that. Ain't done so well with strangers
so far.”
Lowering
the katana, Jo-Mel says, “Understood. But I'm here at Askauri's
behest and you should know that the wilds of the Incata are best
navigated by the wit of two women.”
Peering
closer, Monie says, “I know you...”
“Yes,”
Jo-Mel says. “And you know that I mean you no harm, Monique
Felani.”
18
Bealz is
gone. No where to be found amongst the debris scattered about when
Pickle-Me-Jack's enchantment collapsed. Monie, assisted by Jo-Mel,
searches frantically for her son, but can find him nowhere.
They find
the pieces of the battered wooden cart that Jack had pulled through
the woods, but its contents had been scattered. They even managed to
find and free several creatures, some even sentient, from their
bindings. Most of those still wrapped in Jack's cacooning, though,
were long dead.
Finally
honing in on and tracing Bealz's essence down into the ether of the
void, Jo-Mel knows where they must go.
“You'll
have to open another gateway,” she says to Monique.
“Why?
Where's my son?”
“When
the demon's illusions collapsed, it created a vortex. He fell
through. He's been pulled back through to Earth.”
Monique
feels a pang of uncertainty. Here she stood, in her true form.
Fiercely confident, capable. Scared to death. She felt as though
she wore a new body. Or better yet, the same body stuffed into the
skin of another.
It was
Monique who wielded the flames, shaped her heart's desire upon the
forge of an unwavering force of will.
Monie
just wanted to hold her son. She only wanted to stroke his hair and
face and shield him away and keep him safe.
The two
women confronted themselves, each staring at the other with awe and
disgust.
Taking a
deep breath, she turns to Jo-Mel. “Let's go,” she says, closing
her eyes and envisioning home. This time, with her awakening, she
sees and follows the thread of her genetic line. She's allowed
access to the magics of her familial histories.
The
portal opens for her without the violent eruption of brute force
she'd found necessary before. This time she slid easily between
worlds as she took Jo-Mel's hand and stepped through, but her cipher
was slightly off.
They
weren't in Chicago.
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