In Exchange for Magic

I awoke in a large, grey cell.

Yeah! How cliche is that?

Straw was strewn about the floor, as if I was some kind of an animal. My stomach rumbled angrily. There was a bowl on the floor, filled with what looked like Kibbles n' Bits.

Okay... So, obviously, the Shades were ridiculing me. Either that, or they really thought that humans were wild animals.

Somehow, I felt that this was Bane's way of saying, "Ha! Ha! We caught you!"

It was then that I became aware of what I had done.

I had gotten caught by the Shades. The one thing that I wasn't supposed to do... I went and did it.

I grimaced, rubbing my sore head as I did so. There was a knot on top of it that was currently throbbing heatedly. The spaces behind my eye sockets throbbed - a distinct stress headache.

They were going to torture me now. I nodded to myself, accepting it. I had to be strong. I had deliberately disobeyed Ez, but I wouldn't betray him.

He still hadn't told me why the Shades wanted his name. But it was obviously bad if he didn't trust me with the information. I sighed, wishing that I hadn't annoyed him into telling me his name.

Ezekiel Sullivan Jr. I didn't know his middle name... Did that count?

I looked through the bars of my cell to see a shade sitting on a large metal stool. He was looking at me, smiling slightly. It was as if his only job was to watch me. Which, considering the circumstances, it probably was.

A large ring of keys was clutched in the yellowing nails of his right hand. He licked his chapped lips and started chewing on the flaps of skin that were peeling off of them. It made me want to vomit.

Ezekiel Sullivan... I thought his name again.

Can Shades read minds?

I darted another glance at my captor. He was biting both of his lips at the same time, making himself look like a very confused turtle.

Obviously not.

I sighed and picked at my bowl of Kibbles. I sniffed one, and scrunched up my nose. Okay, I was hungry... But not that hungry.

I opted, instead, at throwing the dog chow-like pellet at my Shade friend. It hit him squarely between the eyeballs, and he started, looking around wildly. I whistled and waved at him sweetly, flashing another Kibble.

His maroon face instantly became scarlet, and he hissed something at me in his own tongue. It made my ears throb and my bones ache... It was truly a powerful language... And that scared me to no end. To make him stop, I tossed the Kibble I was holding. It smacked him on the chin this time.

Furiously, he leapt up from the chair and took a menacing step in my direction. Then, as if he was hit with an invisible fist, he doubled over in pain.

It took me a second to realize that he really had been hit. With a giant stick! And guess who was holding it?

"Ez!" I cried, rushing to the edge of my cell and curling my fingers around the bars. "Oh my God! You kick ass!"

The Shade began to recover from the blow and straightened up.

Ez rolled his eyes. "Yeah. Don't get used to it, sweet."

Then, with a mighty swing, he whorled around, and cracked the approaching Shade on the head with his walking stick. I gasped aloud and covered my eyes, knowing, beyond a doubt, that a blow that hard would kill the creature.

But... It didn't! The Shade hardly flinched! It was as if the crushing hit had been... A minor inconvenience.

Ez backed away slightly, brandishing his staff like a baseball bat. The Shade grinned lopsidedly and withdrew his curved sword. Akin to a pirate's cutlass, the sword shone as it caught a glint of sunlight through the barred window.

With a lunge and a thrust, the Shade advanced towards Ez, making me scream involuntarily. But my elf-boy-thing stepped smoothly out of the way, and began climbing up a coat cabinet. The Shade followed him menacingly, standing at the bottom with the tip of his sword in the air.

Ez scrambled to the top of the cabinet, braced himself, and then jumped. I winced, expecting him to come crashing down on the floor with a sickening crunch, but that didn't happen. Instead, he landed neatly behind the Shade, and brought his staff around it's neck. Ez yanked backwards, and applied pressure, using his walking stick to cut off the Shade's air supply.

I could tell that this really wasn't hurting the tall maroon creature. Instead, it was making him angry. He dropped his sword onto the concrete floor, and used his stubby fingers to scrabble at the staff. In a clawing motion, the Shade swiped at the side of Ez's face, but it didn't phase him.

The creature hissed angrily, and I was reminded of bacon sizzling in a hot frying pan...

In one swift movement, Ez dropped his walking stick, and grabbed the Shade by the shoulders. It was taken by surprise, and so it did nothing when Ez made his next move...

He tensed, grabbed the sides of the Shad's face, hesitated, and then planted a giant kiss on his mouth!

I squealed and my eyes widened in shock.

"Ezekiel!" I cried, wondering what the hell the boy thought he was doing.

After a few seconds, a cringing Ez dropped the Shade's face. It collapsed on the floor, motionless.

"What the hell was that?" I demanded.

Ez clutched his stomach and groaned in disgust. "I can't believe I just did that..."
"Yeah!" I exclaimed. "Me either! Care to explain?"

He shook his head violently. "No time."

I noticed that the Shade had begun twitching slightly. His eyes were rolled back in his head, and an off-white foam was bubbling up over his lips. I looked away quickly, trying to keep the contents on my stomach in place.

Ez bent over and retrieved a large ring of keys from the gurgling Shade's belt, where he had put them before the fight. He slid the biggest, blackest, rustiest key into my cell's slot, and I was free.

He grabbed me by the upper arm and began pulling me into the hall. I looked around in wonderment, as I'd been unconscious the first time I'd taken this journey. All sorts of sinister looking magical things lined the walls. Portraits of evil looking Shades: smiling proudly with the heads of a victim on a nearby stick. Shelves crammed with whizzing and whirring things that we ran by too fast to get a good look at.

Ez was holding on to my arm with an uncomfortable tightness, as if he was afraid I was going to run away again.

We reached the front door, after winding our way through the labyrinth of corridors and holding cells. Ez seemed to know his way around the place.

"The Shades are all eating," he said to me, explaining why the prison was nearly empty. "I had to wait outside for them to ring the lunch bell. Do you have any idea how agonizing that was?"
"Sorry," I mumbled.

We turned sharply around the next corner and ran smack into another Shade. I screamed, and Ez stepped forward. This time he skipped the fight, and caught the Shade off guard, whacking it on the head to confuse it, and then planting a kiss right on his lips.

Then, in the same wave of nausea he had the first time, he rubbed his foregead and groaned, "Why are they never girl Shades?"

He took my arm again and slipped the staff back into the holster that he's slung across his back. We stepped over the Shade's twitching body and made our way to the exit.

"Hey... Uh... Ez?" I asked, once we'd reached the front door. "Can I ask you something?"
"Mmm?" he grunted, trying to force open the heavy wooden barrier.

"Uh... Why in the hell did you kiss those Shades?"

"Elf's saliva is toxic to the Shades," he told me, not looking me directly in the eyes.
"AHA!" I cried. "I knew you were an elf!"

He shook his head. "I'm not all elf..."
I raised an eyebrow. "You mean like-"
"A half-breed?" he finished for me in a disgusted tone. "Yeah. And guess what? I'm the only one. A reject. An abomination. The King wants me dead."

He stopped trying to open the door and rubbed his forehead again.

"Is that why the Shades are hunting you?" I asked quietly.
"Yes," he answered just as quietly, his eyes trained on the ground.

He was pitying himself... And it was strange and depressing to see.

"Ez... If you don't mind me asking... What the hell are you?"
"Half Elf," he offered.
"Yeah. Okay. What's the other half?"

He was staring at his feet, but, quickly, his eyes flitted up to my neck.

"Oh no... Oh hell no..." I murmured. "Ez... Don't tell me...?"
"Half Vampire," he finished.

Great. Just great!

"That's why I had to kiss them," he continued, disgusted with himself. "Because I had to get my saliva directly into their systems. A pure-blooded Elf could have spat two feet away from them. Just the fumes would have knocked a Shade out, maybe even killed him."

"I... Ez..." I began, but trailed off. What could I say to the guy?

"Don't bother," he barked. "Never mind. Forget I told you."
I sighed.

Then we heard a sharp alarm go off from within the Shade's prison. A flashing red light was blaring down the hall. Ez immediately mustered up his strength, and pushed the giant doors open. We sprinted out of that place like it was on fire.

It turns out that the building was pretty much in the middle of nowhere. A dense thicket surrounded us, and a path led away from the prison, out across the horizon. The sky was prematurely dark, hinting at an oncoming storm.

"Shit!" Ez cried. "We're going to have to sprint it!"
"What?" I screeched. "You mean... On foot?"
"Yeah? What did you think I meant?"
"Uh... How about flying, Mr. I-Can-Control-Trees!"

He took my hand and started running. I tagged along, grumpily being pulled behind him.

"Good point, Rose! Oh, wait! One little problem... There are no trees!"
"Shrubs!" I shouted, pointing at the thicket along side the path we were running down. "Those are plants! Control those!"

"Shrubs?" he cried, panting as he ran. "Are you mad, woman? I'm half Elf, not a miracle worker!"
"Excuse me! I'm sorry I don't know every single damn thing about-"
"Honestly! Shrubs! You want me to be Lord of the Shrub?"

I rolled my eyes, getting slightly out of breath. "No! I'm just saying... It couldn't hurt to try, now could it?"

He ignored me and pointed to the beginnings of the forest.

"There!" he shouted with glee. "The Attannian Forest!"
"Too bad it's about a frickin' mile away!" I scoffed.

I could just barely see the tops of a cluster trees on the horizon. Ez smiled slightly, took a deep breath, and clung tight to my hand.

Then he started running with such speed that I was, quite literally, lifted off my feet. I let out a strangled scream of surprise and, within seconds, I was in Ez's arms. He ran with me... So fast that everything blurred into one big streak of fuzziness...

Then, we were in the forest. Ez collapsed onto the ground, panting. The trees were dense, even though we hadn't gone far into the forest. We'd have adequate cover from the Shades. Ez groaned in pain and rolled over on the ground.

"I'm not... supposed... to run that long..." he panted.

I guess the running was a vampire thing. He couldn't over-exert himself, just like a human couldn't run for too long without collapsing.

Large dark clouds had rolled in above our heads. They just sat there, fat and pregnant with rain. I scowled at them, betting my life that they'd open up and pour on us at the most inconvenient time possible, as such seemed to be the trend lately.

I turned to tell my theory to Ez, but it was then that I noticed he was bleeding.

Silver blood oozed down his brow and onto his neck, glittering in the soft sunlight.

"Oh... My... God," I breathed, as Ez continued to breathe laboriously.
"What?" he asked, getting up off of the ground. "What's wrong now?"
"You... You're bleeding."
"Oh. Right," he said, reaching up to wipe it away.

"You're bleeding silver!" I gushed.
He scowled, rubbing his bloody hand on the seat of his pants.

"Why was it sparkling like that?" I questioned, still mesmerized.
"It's the magic," he explained, recovering from his full-force run. "It makes it shine in the sun. It also makes it so that Shades can't track me... I've got a special kind of freaky blood they've never seen before."

"Ez!" I suddenly screeched, clutching my bare neck. "The necklace! They took the necklace!"

He smirking face went slack with horror. "What?"
"W-When they found me! Bane... The leader, he snapped it off my neck! I... I'm so sorry! The Shades can sense me now... I..."

He looked over his shoulder and through the trees, staring longingly back at the prison.

"No!" I cried, yanking him back into hiding. "You can't! That building is filled with tons of Shades who want you dead... You're not going back in there."

That's when he turned to me. I looked upon his face and saw that most terrible thing I could ever see. Disappointment. Ez was disappointed in me.

"My necklace..."

Grief, guilt, sorrow... They all flooded into me like a tidal wave.

"Ez... I'm sorry," I mumbled. I had no idea as to whom the necklace had belonged to, but it was obviously someone very important to him.

"It doesn't matter now," he said, pretending to shake it off. "It's gone now. There's nothing that can be done. We have to deal with the matter at hand. The Shades know exactly where you are now."
"I know," I said, my voice cracking.

"Rose?"
"Yeah?"
"Forgive me."
"For what?" I asked, confused.
"This."

And Ez Sullivan kissed me.