Finale...Part 3

I was extremely relieved to know that Jasmine and Katherine were safe, but the sight of them stumbling out of that building froze me in place. I simply hadn’t thought of what I would say to either of them if they recognized me.

Instead of noticing me however, all eyes were drawn to the blazing shape in the sky that was quickly growing larger than the curious oddity that it was now. The spot grew brighter and brighter, until we could all make out the exhilerated but scared stiff form of the Frau riding Ravyn’s Phoneix. She was clutching the plumage of the strange bird so hard that tendrils of smoke were coming from that part of the giant birds neck.

Just as the true nature of the Phoenix became unmistakable, that it truly was a giant flaming bird hurtling out of the sky towards us, Katherine fainted dead away into the arms of one of her Miccosuccee rescuers. My duaghter however, proved to be a bit more unflappable, as she called out, “That’s so cool!”

Ravyn, even though she was dirty, bruised and obviously tired, stood up striaght now and was bouncing on her tip toes, eager for her lifelong companion to complete its task. “It sure is darling!”

As soon as the giant bird fluttered to stop and landed, the Frau practically fell off the bird, landing half in the arms of the waiting Ravyn, half on her knees. She grimaced, kissed Ravyn on her unbruised cheek and said, “Honey, next time send a car. As amazing as this friend of yours is, I’ll prefer to stay on the ground, thank you very much!”

The Frau then limped off on her cane to see to the various wounded folk, starting with Herne.

Ravyn was gently straightening the very ruffled feathers of her friends neck and was cooing in her ear in a language only the two of them seemed to understand.

Cerrydwen and Jim had gathered around the landing bird as well. Cerrydwen was looking a little unsteady herself as she stood next Ravyn, almost tuned out of the excitement of having won. Jim was steadying her and trying to talk to someone through his wrist communicator at the same time, the bloody, dented bat lay forgotten near Papa Locks dessicated body.

I approached Cerrydwen, “Are you alright? What happened?”

She turned to look at me slowly, still obviously dazed, “I...uh...had to release the Spirits of those that that foul man had trapped in order to keep himself young and vibrant.” She shuddered at the thought. “I don’t think I would have had that chance if the Professor here hadn’t come along. That foul man was stronger of Will than I had thought. He was on the verge of trapping me when Jim broke his concentration with that bat of his.”

Jim looked up from his wristband when he heard his name, “Yeah well, I couldn’t very well let him have you, you know. He was concentrating so hard on you though, I was able to walk right up behind him and take my best swing to the back of the head.”

I interjected, “You hit him as hard as you could upside the head? I’m surprised he lived through that, you’re pretty damn strong!”

He grinned at the compliment, “To be honest, I was pretty suprised as well, he just kind of stumbled forward, fell to one knee, and then Cerry here planted a big ol’ kiss on his lips and some weird shit started happening.” He held up his hand as Cerrydwen opened her mouth, “I don’t need to know, I’d rather not know what the hell kind of power or spell that was. I’d never be able to kiss a woman again!”

Lost in the banter of the moment, I had lost track that Jasmine was still around. I heard a small, familiar voice right behind me, “Dad, is that you?”

Before I realized what I was doing, I turned around and said, “It’s OK honey, everything will be fine now.”

Her eyes grew wide as saucers as she looked at my face surveyed the rest of me. A host of questions all flooded out at once. “How is this possible?...Why?...What happened to you? I saw your body at the funeral! Everyone said that you were dead! Kenny told me you came to him as a dream, why haven’t you come for me when I needed you?”

I looked into eyes, saw the hurt and the pain that was there. I stepped forward and hugged her to me, whispering into her ear, “Oh Jasmine, I don’t know what to tell you, so much has happened. I love you so very much!”

She was trembling as I held her, but I couldn’t tell if it was with fear or anger, or perhaps a mixture. She whispered back, “You’re so cold.”

I pulled back tolook into her eyes again. I saw a mixture of fear and hope. “Jasmine, things are not really as they seem. This body that you can see and touch is not really who I am. It’s going to take a while to explain, but you have to believe me that I never meant to hurt you or Kenny, or even your mother. I loved you all, and still do. I was involved in something so big and strange that if I had tried to reach out to you before, I was afraid of the danger you would have been in. Everything that’s happened to you just now, is because these bad people wanted to get to me by taking you and your mother captive. I came to Kenny in a dream to stop him from coming here because I knew he was being led into a trap.” I looked down at my feet, shuffled the dirt around a bit. “If I would have tried to save you and your mom sooner, I wouldn’t have had all of these wonderful people to help me out, I probably wouldn’t have been able to help you by myself.”

Jasmine was looking up into my eyes now, “Dad, I am just so glad that you are still here.” She suddenly grew very stern and glared at me, “You better be around a lot more when we get back home.”

I laughed, “I will honey, I promise.” I hugged her again.

We both heard her mother’s voice call out her name and looked to in her direction. Katherine was up and moving towards us tentatively, but looking only Jasmine, eyes blinking and her gait a bit unsteady. “Jasmine, what are you doing? I was so worried about you when I woke up! Why were you hugging that brutish looking man?”

She got closer. Just as Jasmine was about to say something, I said, “Hello Kathy.”

This jolted her, she looked from Jasmine’s face to mine. Her eyes grew wide and then rolled into the back of her head as she fainted again. This time I reached out to catch her as she fell forward, and laid her gently on the ground.

I looked up at Jasmine, “Help me with your mother. I guess she hasn’t changed much, huh?”

Jasmine rolled up her sweater and used it for a pillow, placing it under her mother’s head. “No, you know Mom, she doesn’t deal with change or stress very well. She’ll be alright though once she’s in a more normal environment.”

Once Katherine was seen to, Jasmine looked up at the forms of Ravyn and her Phoenix. Ravyn was now moving around the profile of the bird checking for injuries and missing feathers.

Jasmine looked over at me mischievously, “What do you thnk my chances are of being able to take a ride on that bird?”

“I don’t know honey...” I started before Ravyn’s glance shut me up.

“Pretty darn good sweetey, I was just gonna take her out for a spin around the area, do you want to go?”

“Oh boy, do I? Of course!” Jasmine jumped up and ran over towards Ravyn and the bird, eager for the offered ride.

I stood up and started to say, “I don’t know if that’s such a great id....”

The withering looks I got from both Ravyn and Jasmine shut me up. Ravyn helped Jasmine up onto the birds neck and then bounced up herself in one easy motion. The Phoenix looked back at me, sniffed derisively and then took a bouncing leap into the air. The thrilled shrieks of both riders accompanied the birds own raucous cry.

I stood there shaking my head, wondering what Kathy would think of me for allowing this. Oh well, she shouldn’t have fainted, then she could have told her ‘no’.

Jim ambled up to me, “Hey Rusty, according to the Frau, all of our people survived. We’ve got a couple of wounded folks, including Herne, who will need to be hospitalized. I’m glad your family is OK.”

I looked over at him, “Can you tell me what the heck happened to Drake and to El Diablito?”

“Well, I saw Drake drop Herne and then get on top of you. I was gonna try to get over there to help you, but the wind picked up all of a sudden and we all heard the drums and chants before we saw John Red Bear’s form materialize. When he pointed at Drake, a great big bolt of lightning came down from the clouds and knocked him off of you.”

“Yeah, I heard the chants and music too! I thought that was maybe our allies here.”

“No, our friends here were all too busy fighting to be drumming. That was John Red Bear, I saw him. Anyway, Drake was stunned at least, cause he wasn’t moving much to begin with, but I don’t think he was dead. The little guy who was dueling with Ravyn in that ring of fire and energy that they had erected got all worried. His half of the circle came down real fast and he used some sort of device or magick to move quickly over to Drake’s body. He touched Drake’s smoking chest and then they both disappeared before any of us could react.”

Just as he was finishing his tale, his wristband beeped loudly. He looked down quickly at it, saw some message that must have flashed on it, and looked up at the small number of Miccosuccee and Navajo who had gathered around to hear the story and to watch the flying Phoenix and its passengers. “Hey everyone, we’re going to need to get the scene sanitized as quickly as we can, law enforcement is on its way. We have less than 30 minutes”

He motioned for the others to start their work, and then looked to me. “Zulu will be here shortly as well. He’s going to want to talk to you in private.”

Before I could ask any questions, he looked back down at his wristband, pushed a couple of buttons, and spoke into it, “Hey Ravyn, you’re going to need to cut it short. State and Federal Law Enforcement will be here shortly. We need to send your Phoenix away soon.”

Ravyn cursed then replied that she would be down in a minute.

“So who is this Zulu anyway?” I asked.

Jim looked around uncomfortably, “You’ll know soon enough.”