Chapter 16
Back From The Dead

 

Jenny and Hayden were both holding a cup of tea, listening intently as we explained everything, which was harder on second blush, because it all felt so surreal when you laid it out to someone who wasn’t as intimately familiar with the absurdity of our lives. 

“I’m sorry,” Hayden said, “I’m still not sure why you coming here gave our Lisa glowing — sorry, burning — horns.” He took a sip. “Not that I’m really opposed or anything…” Jenny nudged him with her shoulder, but going off the blush on her face, she didn’t seem to mind all that much either. 

“I can answer that,” Lisa said. She had been pacing around the room, looking at her hand, opening and closing it. She had not, I had to note, been playing around with any kind of magic, even though it had to be coursing through her like electricity through a live wire. She sat down on the edge of the sofa Jenny and Hayden were sitting on, next to where Daniel was leaning against the back of it. He took her hand. “When I got too close to the portal,” she said, waving at the still gently humming hole in reality in the back yard, “magic from… their world seeped in. Into me.”

“But why?” Jenny asked. “It didn’t happen to me, or to Daniel, or Hayden.”

“I trained myself to be receptive to it, my entire life. I use magic, it’s what I do,” Lisa said, matter-of-factly. “Well, it’s what I did. It’s hard to unlearn something like that, and I didn’t even consider the possibility of having to.”

“Wait,” Hayden said, “does that mean anyone could learn to use magic?”

“Yes.”

“That’s terrifying.”

“Yup.”

“So,” Jenny interjected, “if I get this right… this just happened because you were trained. What was with the horns? And the wings? Were those things you used to do all the time, too?” Lisa shook her head. 

“No. Well… yes and no. I used to look, well,” she gestured to me, sitting on the other couch (gingerly so as not to make it collapse), “like that. When I was… powered back up, magic tried to fill the space I used to occupy, including the space that wasn’t there. It took me a minute to get a handle on it.” She waved her hand above her head, where her horns had been a few minutes ago. 

“So that’s what you meant when you said you weren’t going to have them again,” Hayden said. He sounded just the tiniest bit disappointed. 

“It is,” Lisa said. “It took me a long time to not only make peace with the body I have, but to embrace it, make it mine, step away from what I used to think I was supposed to be. I’m not giving that up because the equivalent of a live current thinks I need to go back. Whatever power thinks I’m ‘supposed’ to look like, I choose to look, to be, this.”

Jenny reached over and took her hand. “And I think I can speak for… well, myself and Hayden, but I’m happy I met you when I did, babe. You chose… well, you chose perfectly.” The smile that flashed across Lisa’s face was enough to bring tears to my eyes. It was hard to imagine that The Evil Demon Dragon Queen, Serpent Of The North, had found a family in the suburbs, but apparently she had, and she seemed to be very happy here. 

“Um,” Hayden asked, “why are you crying?” 

“You — you all just — just seem so happy and good for each other,” I sniffled. Next to me, Kazumi giggled softly and put her hand on my arm. 

“I… um… thank you,” Jenny said. “Did we do something wrong?”

“She’s just like that.” Kazumi’s hand had found mine, and gave it a little squeeze. “There’s no need to fret.” I kissed her on the head and she hissed with satisfaction. 

“She’s not going to go Demon Queen again,” Daniel said, sliding the conversation back onto its original tracks. He looked at Lisa, and she nodded. “But with things changing this rapidly, we can’t do nothing.”

“I’m just not doing anything that will endanger my family,” Lisa said, “but if I have to be an ambassador, or some kind of spokesperson between worlds… I can do that.”

“How do you even get started on something like that?” Jenny asked. 

For the first time in what must have been years, Lisa used the magic she’d been filled up with. In her hand was a small ball of glowing, purple energy. It danced between her fingers, and slowly seemed to gain definition, until it was, quite clearly, a very small dragon. It landed on the back of her hand and screeched the smallest imaginable screech. “I’ll think of something,” Lisa said softly. Everyone was staring. 

I opened my mouth to say something, when we were interrupted by a knock on the door. We all turned to it. “Are you expecting anyone else?” Jenny quipped. 

Daniel shook his head with a frown, and he walked over to the door. He didn’t even make it halfway across the room before it was thrown out of the lock. Only barely missing him, the door sailed past Daniel and slammed into the wall, then fell over dramatically. A woman stood in the doorway. She had unkempt hair, and the clothes she was wearing didn’t fit. But something about the colour of her eyes, a glow from within stirred me.

“Liz!” the woman shouted. “Kazumi!” I liked to think I was pretty good in stressful situations, but that didn’t mean I didn’t get startled. I jumped backwards, which meant I tripped over the couch, crashing down onto my back as the woman ran into the room. 

I tried to scramble to my feet as Lisa, having jumped into a defensive stance, raised both her hands, her entire body humming with power. “I don’t know who you are,” she said with authority, “but you are in my house, intruder. What grievances you have with her, you do not —”

“It’s me, you idiots,” the woman said. She rolled her eyes. “I… It’s not… quite enough, but…” She clenched her fists and closed her eyes. Even behind her eyelids, I could see her pupils glowing. Then her face… changed. Well, not quite. It was like a mirage began to appear over it. It didn’t take me very long to recognize it. 

“Sabine?!” Kazumi shouted. 

“Yes!” 

“Wh— how?!”

“I don’t know!” Sabine said with a wide grin. The illusion began to dissipate again, but now that I knew what I was looking for, it was the same expression. The same look in her eyes. “And right now,” she added, closing the distance between herself and Kazumi, “I really don’t care.” With a dramatic flair, she grabbed Kazumi by her lapels and planted a kiss on her stunned face. Then she turned to me. 

Some moments go by so fast that a blink or a heartbeat is enough to miss them. This one didn’t. This one stretched into infinity, and came out the other side ready for more. Only after my lungs started burning did I realize I’d forgotten to breathe. “It’s really you?” I asked. It couldn’t be. I’d mourned her. She died five years ago. She just nodded and smiled. 

“It is,” she said. “There’s nobody else in here. From what I understand, this person hasn’t been truly alive for some time. It’s not quite what I’m supposed to look like but…” Sabine smiled, “I understand you know something about dealing with that.”

“I… but… you… I…” I crashed to my knees, ruining what was left of the flooring. She walked over to me. 

“My Liz,” she said and reached out to touch my face. I was already bawling. “I’ve missed you. I’ve missed your beautiful face.”

“We missed you so much,” I managed between sobs. She kissed me on the forehead, just once. Then on the nose. Then on both of my wet cheeks. And then a very soft one. One I could still feel on my lips for a good long while after.

“I’m sorry,” Sabine said. “I was busy.” She looked over at Kazumi, who had slithered up to her and was slowly coiling around her. I was glad to see I wasn’t the only one crying. “I’ll make it up to both of you,” she said. “We have all the time in the world, now.” Oh, yeah. We were going to have to bring that up at some point.

“We-ell,” I said, not wanting to bring up the end of the world just yet. Sabine looked confused. I waved to the other people in the room. Jenny and Hayden sat on the sofa still, arms wrapped around each other with a look of pure shock on their faces. Lisa’s hands had, thankfully, been extinguished. Daniel had dropped his guard, too. 

“Oh, hello,” Sabine said as if she only really noticed them now. “I do apologize about the door. It was in the way.”

“It was… It was…” Jenny mumbled. 

“I’ll fix it,” Sabine said, rolling up her sleeves. “It might take me a moment, but there’s a source of magic nearby. I can feel it, tugging at the edges of my mind. Once I recharge, I can take care of the damages. You wouldn’t happen to have seen some kind of magical source, would you?”

Hayden pointed to the back door, where the portal still swirled happy little circles of impossibility. “Out back,” he mumbled. 

“Ah,” Sabine exclaimed. “That’ll be it, then.” She took a step forward. “Hold on.” She looked around. “That’s not… supposed to be possible. It takes an impossible amount of energy to keep something like that open.”

“Yes,” Lisa said, “that’s why they’re here.”

“To investigate the portal?” Sabine seemed genuinely curious, and had switched gears incredibly quickly. 

“Well, not quite,” Daniel said. “That’s how they got here. The portal not closing is only a symptom.”

Sabine just nodded, and frowned. “Hold on.” She looked between Daniel and Lisa. “Who are you?” 

Jenny barked out a laugh and then clamped her hand in front of her mouth. “Sorry.”

“I’m Lisa,” Lisa said. “That’s Daniel.”

“Hold on…” Pointing between the two of them, Sabine squinted. “That’s… Daniel?!” 

“Yes,” he said. “It’s been a long time, Sabine.” She rushed over and he wrapped his arms around her. It took me a moment to remember why the two of them would be that familiar with each other. After all, Sabine had been my companion for some time before she’d… passed away, and I had a tendency to forget she’d been the Great Hero Daniel’s companion (and ex) before she and I had ever met. “How’ve you been?” he asked when they pulled out of the hug. 

“Oh,” she said, “you know. I’ve been dead for nigh on five years, so there is that.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, a little awkwardly. 

“It’s fine.” Sabine shrugged and made her way over to the backdoor. “I was too busy being dead to really notice.”

“What was it like?”

“Surprisingly noisy. And colourful. I’m losing memory of it fast. I don’t think I really had an identity for most of it, so it’s hard to place what’s real and what’s hallucinatory.” She spoke a little dreamily as she looked at the portal, then stretched out her hand. “It really is just… bleeding magic, isn’t it?” She turned to the rest of us. “What is happening?”

“Wydonia is dying,” I said. “The whole world is.” She looked at Jenny and Hayden. “That one. Not this one. This one is fine. I think.”

“And you came to ask the old Queen for help?”

“Initially, yes,” Lisa said. “I refused. Partially because I didn’t think I could, largely because I don’t think I should have to, and majorly because I refuse to put my family at risk.”

“Fair enough,” Sabine said. “What made you change your mind?”

“They asked me for help with a different matter,” Lisa shrugged. 

“Which is?”

“The evacuation,” Kazumi hissed, softly, “of our entire world.”

Sabine nodded, and took another step towards the portal. Her eyes started to glow and she lifted a few inches off the ground, and then daintily landed again. With a purposeful tread, she walked back into the room, raised her hand, and the door disembedded itself from the wall, hurled itself across the floor, and slammed into its frame again, dust and fragments zooming towards it to place themselves back to where they should. After a cacophonous moment, the door looked like nobody had exploded it in the first place. 

“Grand,” Sabine said. “Can’t wait to go see it. When do we leave?”