Flying With Fairies: The Complete Set

CHAPTER One

Danny was flying south (Superman style) playing slalom with the islands in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. He was reveling in the joy of flight, feeling the wind in his hair and buffeting his face. He was near the western edge of the Bermuda Triangle when something nailed him from above and sent him careening, spinning out of control, falling out of the ordinarily friendly skies.

Up until a second ago, this had been a spectacular day. He had turned in the last of his documentation for licensure as a physician in the State of Massachusetts. He had avoided a pass by a woman with an unmarried niece or cousin or neighbor, and he had been released from work early to begin his vacation. Life looked mighty fine from his vantage point, flying just below a thin bank of low lying clouds.

One second he was flying along, enjoying the moonlight filtering softly through the clouds anticipating a week on a Bahamian beach, and the next, he was tumbling from the sky fighting for his life. The collision was so hard it could not have been an accident.

There had been no crunch of metal on impact, only the sound of one warm-blooded body hitting another hard. There is not a lot of height to plummet before hitting the water from a few hundred feet. Danny had been flying solo too long for something like a full-on collision, making him panic, but seeing the water rush up had a sobering effect. He regained enough control of his descent to turn his steep dive into an arc. Instead of hitting the water's surface straight on and drilling his head into the center of a crater of sand on the ocean floor, he would carve a path across the surface. His body would fly apart as it cartwheeled.

Danny had known before he hit the water that he would not die. Neither would whatever had collided with him, and was even now desperately clutching both arms around his neck, hanging on for dear life, and screaming in terror. The determined frantic grasp was complicated by the field pack he carried. Whoever came up with this plan, something had gone dreadfully wrong. Danny was less than thrilled.

For the person clinging to Danny's backpack, the day had been horrible, and this was merely another disaster to culminate a day of calamities. She had been sent to find him, but he was not in any of the places she had been instructed to look. Gaining access to his apartment, she had spotted brochures for the hotel where Danny intended to vacation. Terrified that she had failed her first real mission, she had raced after him to catch up. In her excitement at finding him airborne, she ran into him when she had merely intended to greet him and talk to him.

* * * * *

The impact of the water knocked Danny out. He regained consciousness slowly. He did a mental self-exam before opening his eyes. He knew that he had not only survived the crash, but he was lying on his back dressed only in his skivvies in the sand on an island somewhere in the Outer Banks. Not that there was anything wrong with the Outer Banks, but that was not where he wanted to be with someone or something sitting on his chest holding him down.

While one part of his mind assessed his condition, another wandered. The North Carolina Barrier Islands were beautiful this time of year. Flying over them last night, the soft glow of the full moon through the dappled clouds gave them a mystery that amplified their awesomeness. He had been pretending they were a slalom course and flying a twisting route over the channels between them. Their beauty from the air in the soft moonlight prompted the thought of sex being inferior to flying. He still had plenty of time to make his ship in Fort Lauderdale, and a little dodge the radar game would not cause him to be late. Studying for his medical board exams had left him exhausted. He could relax now that the exam had gone to the committee, and he would not hear the results for a few weeks. He was planning a vacation in Freeport, Grand Bahama, before returning to work, and that was all there was to it.

Upon reflection, Danny remembered dragging himself out of the water and pulling his backpack above the high tide line before collapsing in the sand. How he got to this sandy beach from where he had hit the water with the weight of the backpack and his less than magnificent swimming was beyond him. Still, he was there, or at least he thought he was there. Of course, he could be dead, and not know it yet. Something about the Devil not knowing you were dead until half an hour after you arrived in Heaven or some such nonsense. It was all too weird, but then his life had been strange from the moment he realized he could fly, Superman-style, just without the cape.

Danny loved flying. It was his greatest pleasure. Nothing compared to the joy of slipping between snow-capped mountains and playing tag with falcons, hawks, eagles, and osprey. They, of course, took flying for granted and vocally expressed their disapproval of his games. The eagles, in particular, were likely to take umbrage at his approach and respond with anger.

All these thoughts raced through his mind in less time than the telling of it. While it might have taken a few minutes to relate what careened through his returning consciousness, in his mind, it was a matter of a few seconds.

He cautiously opened his eyes. A fairy of perhaps four feet in height sat straddling his chest with her knees firmly pinning his biceps. The fairy was calmly attempting to brush a knot out of her long wavy bright red hair with a polished silver brush. Her wings, as much like Dragonfly wings as anything else, with a span of at least double her height, fluttered gracefully in the cool morning breeze. His mother had told him about fairies when his grandfather was not around to forbid it. Somehow he had never really believed, but then, he could fly like a fairy, so maybe he did, or maybe not.

He may have been confused about his belief in fairies, but there was one thing of which he was sure. This was another redhead! That was all he needed. Redheads always equaled trouble, always, always. There was the one in college that almost got him killed. There was that one in med school that cost him the woman he almost married. The redhead next door in the trailer park he grew up in always created mischief of some kind. He got detention more times because of her than because of anything he did on his own. Independent free thinkers, redheads attracted him like a moth to a flame. A half dozen of them over the years had driven the painful lesson deep into his soul, but he still could not resist them.

This current redhead was sitting on his chest, pinning him down. This was not the first time he had been pinned like this, but it was the first time he was nearly naked. Pogo McGillicuddy had done that to him once in seventh grade. Pogo threw Danny to the ground after a disagreement over another redhead. Holding Danny down, Pogo had straightened up to line up a punch to Danny's face. Danny had quickly reached up with his feet, hooked his heels on Pogo's shoulders, and straightened his legs to throw Pogo to the ground, jumped on top of him, and broken his nose. That seemed like a good plan now, except that whatever held him down had immobilized his legs. He could wiggle his toes and his fingers but not move his legs or his arms.

Ahcch, Doctor Danny Levine, I see ye are awake. It's about time you woke, sleepin' the morning away as if you had nothing better to do! The roll of her r and the guttural sound of her h reminded him of the elderly Irish gentlemen he had met working as an intern in one of Boston's inner-city hospitals. Her ye sounded more like y'i than like the yee most preachers affected.

Danny grinned and blushed all over. He could feel the warmth under her body, and it felt good. Whatever she was up to, she intended him no harm. He knew that, although how he knew that he was not sure. Applying one of his other talents, Danny examined this lovely creature holding him captive and mentally probed her body for her medical condition. This was one of his better skills.

He remembered the first time he had healed someone. He and his friend Brian had gone off into the woods one winter Saturday morning to challenge Dead Man's Rock. It was little more than a hill, but one side had a cliff with a fifty-foot drop. They were ten at the time. Brian had slipped on the ice on top of the hill and had lost his balance. He had rolled off the top of the hill and over the cliff. Danny already knew he could fly and quickly dropped down beside his friend. When Danny reached the bottom of the hill, Brian was unconscious, and his breathing was labored. Danny knew if he left Brian there to get help, the feral dogs would probably get him, but Brian would die in his arms if he didn't. He was afraid to pick Brian up, and carry him because the motion would drive his broken bones out through his skin, and Brian could bleed to death. Uncertain of what to do, he wrapped his body around Brian's to keep him warm. He hoped that Brian would wake enough that maybe they could walk far enough out of the woods together that someone might hear their cries for help. As he lay there with his hands on Brian's face to keep him warm, he hoped that Brian might not die.

Danny lay there what seemed like forever crying, and trying to picture the damage inside Brian's body. After an hour, Brian opened his eyes, Danny? Am I going to die?

Don't talk like that! Not if I have anything to say about it.

Danny, I don't hurt so much as I did before.

Danny was at a loss as to what to say. Okay?

Danny, stay with me.

Sure.

Danny? Are you doing something? I can feel kinda like fixing things inside my body.

I don't think so.

You are. Danny, I feel better. Stay with me.

Danny was terrified that sunset would find them on the side of the hill, and they would freeze to death in the night, but his fears were unfounded.

An hour later, Brian said, Danny, can I sit up now? Hold my hand.

An hour after that, Brian said, I think I can stand now.

Danny helped Brian to his feet. He was wobbly, but the legs that had been bent, and broken in the fall were straight, and held his weight. Danny, we must never tell anyone what happened today. You must promise you will never tell my mother we were on Dead Man's Rock, and I promise never to tell anyone you can heal.

Danny looked at him in silence, and awe.

Please, Danny? Promise?

Promise.

It was one of the reasons he chose medicine. Armed with modern medical knowledge, he could make what he was doing look normal even while it was something else entirely. He could touch someone, and diagnose their illnesses. In some cases, he could heal them, but he never let that be known. He could make a diagnosis in a few seconds, but healing could take hours or days.

Being a healer was what doomed his relationships with women. He loved them, and he enjoyed their company, but nothing matched the joy of seeing the smile on a child's face after he had relieved their pain. Even that paled by comparison to the pleasure of flying. There was nothing any woman could give him that matched that feeling. He had almost been found out once, and the experience had made him doubly cautious.

The redhead who had gotten between him, and the woman he wanted to marry accosted him one day after work toward the end of their internship together. How are you always right? How do you know? She had screamed at him in exasperation as they walked through the subway station.

I don't always know. When I do, it's a guess.

It is NOT! She punctuated her explosion with a sharp fingernail poke in his chest. It’s never a guess. You always know what tests to run, and you’re always right!

I guess it’s all that extra reading. He tried to downplay what was becoming a scene in the subway station. The fact that Danny spent more time than the rest of them in the medical library studying was well established. It was true that he spent every waking hour that he was not in classes or labs in the library reading everything he thought might be of value.

That kid this afternoon had a disease none of us had ever heard of!

I must have read about it somewhere, he said softly, averting his eyes.

New England Journal of Medicine twenty years ago! Mordecai looked it up! How did you know?

Lucky guess? He knew luck had nothing to do with it. He had read that issue of the Journal a few months ago. He remembered everything he read. Of course, if he had not read that particular Journal issue, he would have been just as clueless as everyone else.

And what about that kid with lead poisoning?

Lots of kids in that apartment complex have lead poisoning. They should tear those buildings down! He had shouted back, momentarily forgetting that the subway station was full of people who were staring at them.

Danny came crashing back to the present. The redheaded fairy sitting on his chest had lead poisoning.

He stopped to concentrate. Was he really aware of what he thought he was aware of? Could this be? A beautiful, winged fairy sitting on his chest having a measurable case of lead poisoning was just too weird. His medically correct rapid self-exam told him he was not drunk or dreaming. Of course, there was nothing in his experience that said fairies could not have lead poisoning, especially given that this was the first fairy he had ever encountered. But it seemed odd somehow that this PREGNANT fairy sitting on his chest should have lead poisoning, and the level of lead in her system was high enough to endanger the fetus only a few weeks old. The speed with which he had gone from being a hapless victim lying captive on the beach to miracle worker surprised him.

Danny gasped, and quickly set to work. Friend or foe, he was a doctor, and he would heal her. He could command her organs to flush the lead from her system. She would eventually recover but rescuing the baby was another matter.

What are ye doing!? The fairy demanded as he took control of her heart rate, and respiration.

Saving your life, and if I can, saving your baby!

What, baby?

You’re pregnant.

Ye mock me!

No. Three weeks old, I guess. I trust you know who the father is.

The fairy stopped brushing her hair. Perhaps it is best if I did not say. I fear he does not love me.

Do you want this baby?

Could ye take it from me?

If you wish it, but I would not unless you were certain you did not want to carry this child.

I wish to keep the baby even if its father does not love me.

Then sit still, and let me work.

Doctor Danny, are ye a healer then?

I am a doctor.

Not the same. Are ye a healer?

Yes, I am a healer. Now shut up, and sit still so I can save your baby.

The fairy put down her brush, and leaned forward to rest both hands on Danny’s shoulders. She stayed there immobile while the healing power repaired the damage to the baby, and the mother. By the time Danny finished, he had long ago missed his boat to Freeport, Grand Bahama.

It will be a girl, Danny said finally.

Do ye know that now?

Yes, and you have plenty of time to decide on a name. Speaking of which, what is your name?

Titania, kind sir.

Queen of the fairies?

No, it is a common name since Willie Shakespeare made it popular. I am but a common fairy.

Well, even a common fairy is beautiful in my eyes.

Thank you, kind sir.

Now, my dear lady, if I remember fairy lore correctly, I have done you a favor, and you must do me one. All I ask is to be allowed to continue on my way as if this encounter never happened.

Alas, such is not to be. Ye have done me a great service for which I will no doubt repay ye. I will be forever in yer debt, but I was sent to bring ye home with me. We require yer special skills.

Danny sighed. The week in the Bahamas vaporized in his mind. Freeport would have been a nice change from Boston. Where are we going?

We must go to the other side.

I thought fairies lived among us.

Some still do. We live in another world, too. We travel back, and forth between the worlds from time to time. It’s been tougher lately. We can be seen on the radar. It didn’t take too many UFO sightings to realize that the Air Force considered us a threat. We could no’ outrun their jet planes, so most of those who had remained decided to leave before the radar became good enough to catch us leaving. One of our scholars refers to where we are going as parallel interleaved reality, whatever that means.

The remark sounded too much like something Stephen Hawking might have said for Danny’s liking, and he let it drop. So how do you plan to evade the great, and magnificent Homeland Security’s wonderfully expensive radar blanket covering the coast protecting us from terrorists so we can go to this mythical place on the other side? Do you follow the drug smugglers? Homeland can’t seem to stop them, Danny said sarcastically.

Do not be quick to judge, doctor. A rocket will launch from the Space Center in a few hours. We will ride it.

This I have to see.

And so ye shall. We will not really ride it, but we will use it as protection. The rocket is a distraction, hiding our escape.

Danny scratched his head. Still skeptical, he asked, How do we breathe on our way to this mystical place?

Once we clear the atmosphere, it will feel like a minute. Ye hold yer breath. We will come right back down on the other side.

And how do we not explode like a popped balloon?

Titania sighed, Oh ye of little faith. Am I no’ a fairy? Am I no’ a magic creature just as ye are a magical creature? Why can ye not believe what I say?

Because fairies do not always deal honestly with humans.

Her anger flashed. Doctor Danny Levine, ye are not like the stupid fools that try to trick us! Like it or no’ ye are a magical being as I am! Quit fightin’ wi’ me! We must GO!

Titania’s wings lifted her up, and she hovered over his chest for a moment. Without touching anything, using the motion of her hands, she swept his belongings from where they had been drying, scattered over the sand into the pack carrying no small amount of sand with them. With an angry pout, she pointed at his clothes. They’ll be dried out by now. Put them on so ye don’ freeze!

No sooner had Danny dressed, and settled his pack on his shoulders than Titania grabbed a fistful of his hair, and they lifted off. They raced low over the water, making a beeline for the Space Center. As they approached the launch pads, they could see the rocket’s engines start to fire. They swooped in gracefully, staying low over the water, and grabbed a handhold near the top of the rocket. The rocket’s sensors adjusted for the slight amount of increased weight as if it were a random gust of the wind as the heartless mechanical fire-breathing Dragon with a brain of silicon roared skyward. Because they were flying on their own, and merely using the rocket for guidance, and cover, they only added a few pounds to the giant’s mass. If anyone took the time to carefully analyze the data, they would see the unexpected increase in the rocket’s mass two seconds after liftoff. Danny wondered about the images the hundreds of cameras that tracked every launch might send back that showed them alongside the rocket, and the reactions of the people who saw them.

All Danny knew was that wherever he was going would be unlike any place he had ever been. Somehow, though, that was oddly reassuring. Danny watched with detached interest as the rocket’s first stage fell away, and the second stage engines fired. He realized that he had no trouble breathing despite what he knew to be low air pressure at this altitude. He noticed that he did not feel the rush of air past him that he should have felt traveling at this speed. Titania must have been using some kind of shield to protect them from an environment that otherwise would have killed them in seconds.

CHAPTER TWO

The rocket’s second stage shut down, and Danny relaxed in the sudden silence. Titania once more pulled on Danny’s hair, and they took off in a new direction. The quip second star to the right, and on ‘til morning almost escaped his lips. Danny knew Titania’s protective shield was still in place, and he was safe, but he felt exposed. Traveling at a height where the sky was no longer blue but had turned to the black of deep space unnerved him. The travel time in this hostile environment was blessedly short. As promised, Danny did not burst like a popped balloon, but he did hold his breath out of nervousness. His breath had almost run out when they entered the upper atmosphere of a stunningly blue planet that looked like Earth but was not Earth. The ratio of land masses to water appeared less than modern Earth, but the similarities outnumbered the differences.

Entry into the atmosphere was as brutal as everything NASA reports had given him reason to believe it could be. Titania continued to shield them with a barrier to divert most of the air, so it flowed around them instead of hitting them with all its force. The barrier buckled, and strained against the onslaught of the thickening air, which became denser as they descended. The magical barrier twisted, and danced, showing its stresses glowing in various hues ranging from bright yellow to iridescent red as kinetic, and thermal energy bled off into the thin air. Danny wondered if all this dissipating energy would block his sensory abilities like it blocked radio transmissions from returning spacecraft. His sensory abilities worked fine. His danger sense sounded to alert him of trouble ahead. On the one hand, he was glad his senses worked, and on the other, he was concerned that he might be flying into a trap. Of course, he should have thought about the potential for a trap before he left Earth.

Danny looked ahead. Something about the protective shield Titania had erected enhanced his vision, so he saw better than he would have on his own. He saw a squadron of shapes that looked like modern jet aircraft rapidly climbing in their direction, intent on intercepting them. Concerned that they might be an enemy, he pointed them out to Titania.

Fighter escort, she shouted with a grin. She flashed a thumbs up.

Despite Titania’s grin, the fact that they might need a fighter escort was not comforting. Having a fighter escort could be comforting. Needing a fighter escort was not.

Four tight finger four formations of shapes converged on them from below. The formation was textbook perfect, just as the Discovery Channel, and Military Channel showed they should be. The orderlies in the clinic where Danny worked were as macho a group of guys as you would ever like to meet. They insisted on having the Discovery Channel on in the break room instead of one of the sports channels. On those rare occasions when life was calm in the Intensive Care Unit, he sat with them, and watched it. As the formation approached, Danny realized what he had been seeing was not the objects themselves but the turbulence their shields created as they passed through the atmosphere. A squadron of sixteen Pixies in combat gear moving faster than the speed of sound was approaching.

Combat between the races of magical creatures had figured in Danny’s mother’s stories, but he was not prepared for Pixies in combat regalia. If his mother’s stories were to be believed, these Pixies would be heavily armed and, based on the tightness of the formation, well trained. Pixies had a severe case of small man complex,, and one did not anger them. If a person accidentally insulted one, they made amends as quickly as possible to avoid Pixie's revenge. According to the stories, the Pixies were fierce friends, and fiercer enemies. Pixie revenge was not an experience one wanted to repeat.

By the time the Pixies had arranged themselves around Danny, and Titania, the path took them out over the ocean. Maintaining formation, they matched Danny, and Titania’s angle of declination precisely. One flight of Pixies, still tightly keeping their perfect finger four formation, took a position at their twelve o’clock high. One was at three, one at nine o’clock level, and one at six o’clock low. Eighteen living beings flying without machinery dropped precipitously as they headed for the horizon. They were still too high for the air to be breathable, but it made the ride too rough to be comfortable.

Danny’s danger warning had not diminished with the arrival of the Pixies. The Pixies might be on his side, but the real danger was still waiting for them. The Pixies sensed the enemy ahead, and readied their weapons. The Pixies were evenly divided between males, and females. The intensity of the Pixies’ posture reinforced the impression his mother had given him that Pixies were not the type of creatures he would like to tangle with in a dark alley. Even with this protection, Danny tried to imagine what evil could lie ahead that would engender such enmity.

According to Danny’s mother, Pixies were social, fun-loving creatures fond of bad puns, and practical jokes. Pairs of Pixies searching for good times might temporarily attach themselves to individual fairies or even to humans, but such relationships were generally short-lived, usually ending amicably. Fairies, and Pixies clashed over territory, but they typically negotiated peaceful truces. They usually allied in times of trouble, but the Pixies were independent creatures. Seeing Fairies, and Pixies together in these numbers probably meant that they shared a common enemy. Despite their quarrels, when threatened, they banded together. Whatever evil lay ahead must be horrific to inspire such fierce expressions on the Pixies.

The formation descended through the atmosphere, lighting up the sky like a meteor as they traveled. There was nothing secret about this approach. Danny marveled at the variations of hues in the protective shield around them as it deflected the energy of their descent. Danny almost felt as if he was out for a summer afternoon airborne sightseeing trip instead of hurtling through the upper atmosphere of a planet that was both home, and not home. He would have, except for the brilliance of the psychedelic light show around him.

Danny’s warning sense had never before signaled this powerfully for so long. His internal warning system went into sensory overload, and stayed there. It did not decrease as the flight group descended. It had started as a sharp pain but, like many intense pains, exhausted the supplies of sodium ions that carried the signals from his synapses to his brain. As the formation continued to descend, the warning faded, not from diminished severity but rather from his body’s inability to deal with it. The warning receded to a dull, fatigued ache. Once the danger finally appeared, Danny grasped the significance of the intensity of the warning system that had served him well, and had done its job faithfully yet again.

Two immense Dragons with incredible wingspans drove upwards at them from their one o’clock. Desperately beating their huge wings as they clawed for altitude, they each carried a hooded figure wearing a long black robe. Danny evaluated the threat as calmly as he could, for clearly, the Dragons were the threat he had been warned about. Even as Danny assessed the danger, he was struck by the unusual nature of these Dragons. They were far less lizard-like than he expected, and were more bird-like. In fact, their black-looking wings were feathered with multiple layers of dark feathers. While the feathers appeared black at first glance, as the light caught the wings in different parts of the stroke, the wings showed iridescent blue, and deep red. Had they been less threatening, they would have been beautiful.

Two flights of the Pixies broke formation to engage the Dragons head-on. Strategically, Danny wondered if a head-on approach was wise. That rarely seemed to work on the air-to-air combat television shows he had seen. The engagement window with two aircraft flying head to head was so short that aiming opportunities were challenging. In addition to the shortness of the encounter, aiming was further complicated because a head-on approach left the minimum target to shoot at. He watched transfixed as eight Pixies dove directly into the faces of the climbing Dragons. The Pixies fired their crossbows first, but their weapons had no apparent effect.

Danny computed their relative trajectories, and realized that his collision point with the Dragons was about three minutes away. Even discounting the possibility that these might be the fire-breathing Dragons of his mother’s stories, their current flight paths would have them collide if neither diverted. The ratio of his mass to theirs did not make the likelihood of surviving a collision something he wanted to contemplate. He did not know the Dragons’ firing range, but a crash appeared imminent, even lacking that.

Three minutes did not give him a lot of time to develop a battle plan. He scolded himself. He had either watched too much Discovery Channel or not enough. He needed a plan, and did not have one. Suddenly a spurt of flame double the Dragon’s body length issued from underneath one of the Dragons. One entire flight of Pixies simply disappeared. Four Pixies were gone in the blink of an eye. A sprinkling of ash floating in the air showed where they had been. A second later, the second Dragon spewed forth flame. The second flight of Pixies turned into four fireballs falling to earth.

Danny rarely showed anger, but the force of the wave of fury that hit him was not to be denied. He battled death in many forms on others’ behalf daily. He was not afraid of death, but he was angered by it. Murder, and wanton killing made him the angriest. He understood the exigencies of war, even though he had never been in combat. Still, one could not treat as many combat veterans as he had treated during his internship in the trauma center, and not be angered by the senselessness of it all. Danny could not imagine a less inviting welcoming party than Dragons with flame throwers carrying masked death. Danny’s mood was becoming grimmer by the moment.

Seeing through the redness of his anger, Danny rallied his thoughts. There was something to be said for all that military education courtesy of the break room television. Danny realized that the Dragons were not truly fire breathing because they did not produce flame independently. They carried equipment to make them flame. The difference between fire breathing, and fire carrying was immense. A fire-breathing Dragon needed only turn its head to toast its target. A fire-carrying Dragon had to aim its whole body to inflame a target, much like a WWII fighter pilot had to aim the entire aircraft at his target. This was all the difference in the world. Danny recalled a tactic that could be used to defeat the Dragons, and their riders. Since they could only throw fire in one direction, and had limited maneuverability due to the steepness of their climb, there was a weakness he could exploit.

The remaining two flights of Pixies broke away to engage the Dragons. Danny knew that without his intervention, these eight Pixies would suffer the same fate as their comrades. Danny recognized that he now had descended far enough into the atmosphere that the air was thick enough that he could breathe without assistance. This also meant the air was dense enough to support traditional dogfighting aerial combat maneuvers. He knew what he must do. He shouted Break left! to Titania, who did not understand what he meant. Taking a deep breath, Danny pulled back into a steep climb. He had hoped Titania would turn away from the Dragons, and stay out of range, but she followed right behind him.

Danny knew that an Immelman is not strictly considered a combat maneuver, but there were laws of physics working in his favor. The Dragons were straining at their maximum climb rate. If he could trick them into trying to climb at a steeper angle, he might get them to stall. He had done this with an eagle once. The male bird had attacked him after he had come too close to the eagle’s nest. Danny had climbed high enough, and fast enough that the bird had actually fallen over onto its back in an attempt to follow him. The bird’s instincts had taken over. It retracted its wings, dove head first until it regained control, and spread its wings gracefully, returning to level flight. By that time, Danny was long gone.

In his mind, Danny visualized hauling back on the stick in a World War II fighter plane. He imagined the sound of the small plane’s engine struggling into the climb. Eight Pixies had died defending him, and he resolved that no more would lose their lives on his behalf.

Danny could not remember being this angry. He envisioned steam coming out his ears. He pictured white puffs of steam flowing over his shoulders like smoke from a steam locomotive. The loop was tight. He knew exactly how much strain he could take in such a maneuver because he had done it before, but he had no idea if Titania could follow him without hurting herself. He was not happy that she was following him in the loop. The G forces were so extreme that her hair was no longer flowing straight behind her, pushed by the air but was pushed outward by the force of the loop.

Danny sacrificed airspeed, and translated it into altitude.

Out of the corner of his eye, Danny could see the Pixies’ confusion. They were looking at each other for guidance. They broke off their attack and, maintaining their groups, broke left, and right away from the Dragons.

The Dragon riders were also surprised. They waved, and pointed to each other, drawing their mounts into steeper climbs. They had never seen a tactic like this. They assumed that Danny, and Titania would continue to climb, and escape, oblivious to the fact that if Danny continued in the loop, he would come back around directly into their line of fire.

Danny weighed the option of flipping over at the top of the loop, and escaping in the direction he had come. As they approached the top of the loop, their airspeed had dropped to almost nothing, but they were out of the range of the flame throwers.

The Dragons continue to climb.

When Danny needed to make his decision, one of the Dragons faltered, short of breath. The riders pulled the Dragons into steeper climbs to follow their quarry. One of the Dragons slipped. It lost the lift in its wings. It slid backward tail first, and rolled over to its back as the eagle had done. The Dragon started to fall out of the sky, taking its rider with it. This had been Danny’s plan. He forced the Dragon to stall just as he had forced the eagle to stall.

Danny flipped over at the top of the loop as if he was planning to flee in the direction from which he had come, but then he broke to the left. Titania followed right behind. Danny could see that she was struggling, but she was keeping up with him. It was time to press the attack from another direction. One Dragon was out of the action. It was in a flat spin, and losing altitude. The Dragon only had a few minutes before it spun into the ground. Unlike an airplane, the Dragon could curl one wing under, and turn the spin into a dive, and regain control. Danny hoped that the rider would let the Dragon’s natural instincts keep them both from being killed. It was a perfect textbook flat spin. If the Dragon were an airplane, it would be doomed.

One Dragon was left within striking distance. It was losing altitude. It pitched its nose down, and regained forward motion. The rider tried to bring the Dragon back around so the flame thrower could bear on Danny. Danny dove for the Dragon rider keeping clear of the Dragon’s line of fire. It was a straight, powered dive, and not a free fall. He dove at full speed straight down at the Dragon. Titania stayed right behind him. Danny could not remember the last time he had moved this fast. The Dragon Danny was attacking turned back around to meet Danny’s oncoming charge. Danny dove straight for it, but his attention was fixed on the rider.

Danny was still concerned that the Dragon had enough control to turn around in this thin atmosphere in time to fire at him before he could press his attack from the side. The Dragon’s rider spurred his charge around, but the Dragon resisted. The Dragon reached his long neck around to snap at the rider. Its bite severed one of the straps holding the rider on his back. The rider struck the Dragon on its head, and neck with his riding crop. The Dragon bit the crop breaking it.

Looking like a raptor about to pounce on its prey, Danny dropped feet first toward a collision with the rider. The Dragon could not bring his flamethrowers around to fire at him. The Dragon was almost ready to fire when Danny’s feet struck the figure on the back of the Dragon knocking him from his mount. The rider flailed in the air after he fell since he could not fly on his own.

The Dragon, whose rider now fell toward the ground, did not turn on Danny but instead went after the other Dragon as it recovered from the flat spin. It fired on the companion Dragon’s rider. The other rider burst into flame, and both Dragons bit the straps that held him in place. They knocked the burning rider free. A fireball that once was a Dragon Rider fell to earth, leaving a trail of smoke not unlike the smoke from a downed aircraft. The Dragons turned, and fled. The Dragons were faster than the Pixies, and the Pixies broke off pursuit.

Danny, Titania, and the death figure continued to plummet earthward. Danny reached out for the death figure. He pulled the hood back to reveal an elf. It was an elf dressed as an angel of death. He had probably intended to intimidate Danny but failed. Danny gripped the elf from behind, and locked him in a wrestling hold. He closed his legs around the elf. Danny knew from his mother’s stories that elves could not fly. Witnessing this one’s panic, he knew it to be true. Danny could let this elf fall to his death, but instead, he chose to rescue his enemy.

Danny tightened his grip on the Dragon’s pilot. With his enemy stripped of his death cloak, the elf was only slightly taller than Titania. He had pointed ears, and long blond hair. Danny held him captive as they continued to fall. Danny’s anger had subsided, but uppermost in his thoughts were questions he intended to ask this elf when they were safely on the ground. Titania spun a web around Danny, and the elf that took their weight as they descended. Had she not done that, Danny could not have held them, and they would have fallen to their deaths despite Danny’s best efforts.

As they descended, Danny realized he could not fly. He had no control over their descent. They were falling. Titania was dropping as well, but she at least had the benefit of her wings. Whatever force Danny usually used to fly had been blocked. In all his years of flying, Danny had never felt the fear of being airborne. He was terrified, and his captive sensed it. The elf began to laugh. It was a rough, dry laugh, mean, and vindictive, lacking in humor. Titania grabbed them, and attempted to slow their fall. Beating her wings furiously, it was all she could do to keep them from splattering on the side of the mountain range they were crossing. Spotting a mountain lake, Danny pointed at it. Hoping that impact with the water would be less severe than impact with the bare rock of the mountain, he directed her to push them toward