“Sally is beyond my ability to help. She needs the light of the luminous sprites. She was accosted by the Order. What they did to her is sick, and their magic is still at work in her mind. It’s dark, darker than I’ve ever seen. I tried, but I couldn’t drive it out. I will beg if I must. Please help me.”
“The Order,” the queen’s voice was ice cold as she spoke. “They have crawled out of their hole?”
“It seems so,” Cindy answered. “They’re on the move to gain supporters. They’ve already asked me.”
“You denied them.”
It wasn’t a question, but she answered anyway. “Of course. I would die before I worked with them.”
“Why do they want your daughter?”
“She is a gypsy healer, my queen. A powerful one. And she is related to me. My guess is that they hoped to use her against me to gain my compliance. But they underestimated her pack’s drive to rescue her and the power of those who care for Sally.”
“Pack?”
“She’s mated to a Canis lupus.”
“And now she is back with her pack, safe?” she asked.
Cindy nodded. “She is back, but I do not know how safe she is. The darkness in her is like a parasite. It must be excised.”
“I will allow the luminous to help. But I would like to meet your daughter. She is, after all, half sprite.”
Cindy bowed her head again and let out a relieved breath. “Thank you, my queen.”
“I will send out a call to the luminous and ask any willing to help to arrive within the hour.”
Exactly one hour later, Cindy was standing in the hall of the queen, surrounded by twelve luminous sprite females.
A sprite that Cindy recognized stepped forward, and Cindy smiled. “Diedre, it’s so good to see you.”
Diedre wrapped her arms around Cindy and pulled her into a warm embrace. “You have been gone a long time, sister. We welcome you back.”
Cindy stepped back and made eye contact with the others. “I have been gone a long time. Unfortunately, I return now under dire circumstances. I need your help.”
“The queen said your daughter is in trouble,” Diedre said.
“She is. There is dark magic at work in her mind. My healing is not enough. She needs light. Would you all be willing to share yours?”
They all nodded, but Diedre spoke for them. “We will. However, I must suggest we wait three days until the full moon. Our magic is more powerful on that night. We might as well give it everything we’ve got the first time around in hopes there won’t have to be a second.”
Cindy nodded. “I agree. I shall return then in three days’ time. My queen.” She turned to the forest queen who was sitting quietly watching them. “May I bring my husband and my daughter’s mate with me to your palace?”
“Yes, of course. I look forward to meeting them. Peace, Cindira. We will see you in three days.”
Two uneventful days passed, and Sally felt as though they should throw a party or somehow mark the occasion. No one was in a battle, no one was killed, as far as she knew Jen wasn’t stripping in public, and she hadn’t even had any bad dreams. Things were about as peaceful as they’d been before she’d ever even known werewolves existed. She and her mom had sat and talked about Titus for most of those two days. Costin intermittently offering how their son would have Jen’s daughter drooling and Jacque’s son feeling inadequate.
“I can’t believe they have kids too,” her mom sighed. It was early evening the day before they were to go to the sprite realm and the four of them were lounging in the living room after having eaten tacos.
“’Jen’s a great mom,” Sally admitted. “I’m mean she’s bat crap crazy, but she’s a really great mom.”
“And Jacque?” her dad asked.
“She’s a great mom too, but Jacque is more of a natural. Jen is less June Cleaver and more Jessica Rabbit.”
“It seems like you should be too young to know those references,” Costin chuckled.
“Dude, I watch television,” Sally said dryly, nudging him with her foot. “You can’t really be too young to know anything these days. All you have to do is look it up on YouTube or see if it’s on Netflix.”
“That’s true,” her dad agreed. “Once upon a time, when something went out of style on television it disappeared into the cosmos, now it just get’s stored on the internet.”
“Well, back in my hay day, internet would have been climbing into an actual net,” Cindy said with a grin.
Sally groaned.
“Too soon?” Cindy chuckled.
“It’s just weird,” Sally said. “But then, I’m married to a werewolf and have an adopted son who still doesn’t know what we are, so I guess really it’s not.”
“Just got to take the punches as they come kiddo,” her dad said. “If you don’t roll with them, you’ll get knocked out and then just think of all the fun things you’ll miss. Oh, this is a good show,” he added quickly as he paused what Sally had considered was his absent minded channel surfing. The show that had caught her dad’s attention happened to on the history channel and not something that kept her mind sufficiently distracted.
Sally couldn’t stop thinking about her impending trip to the sprite realm and the weird exorcism-thingy she was going to have done. Well, at least that was how she kept referring to it in her head.
“It’s not an exorcism, beautiful,” Costin said with a chuckle.
“What?” her mom asked, turning to look at her from where she and her dad sat on the love seat.
“My mate thinks she’s having an exorcism performed tomorrow,” Costin said absently, his attention still on the TV.
“Sally.”
She tried to groan as her mom’s voice took on the all too familiar why-on-earth-would-you-think-that tone.
“Why on earth would you think that?” her mom asked.
“And there it is, folks,” she muttered under her breath.
Costin laughed as his attention finally left the television. “You called it,” he said holding up his hand for a high five.
“I’ve heard my name said in that tone of voice for a long time, many times,” Sally admitted.
Cindy narrowed her eyes at her daughter. “Quit trying to avoid answering me. Why would you think you’re having an exorcism?”
“Because there is something in my head that needs to come out. Ergo, exorcism.” Sally shrugged.
Her mom made a motion to her dad and suddenly the TV was off, and both her parents were facing her and Costin.
“I feel like things just got serious, really fast,” Costin murmured.
“Like intervention-serious,” Sally nearly whispered.
Her dad gave them an odd look and then shook his head, and a small smile appeared on his lips. “You two were made for each other.”
Costin patted her thigh. “See, told ya.”
“Sally, I didn’t want to tell you at first, but I guess I need to. I don’t want us going out there tomorrow with you thinking there’s a demon or something inside of you,” her mom said, ignoring her dad and Costin.
“Tell me what?” Her insides tightened. Things just went from intervention-serious to heart-attack-serious.
“When I looked inside your mind, I found a form of dark magic.”