Shannon O'Reilly was bullied and everything his older sister wasn't. When his sister Sarah gives him a chance to change things through a single wish things don't go as planned.     I Wish: Book 5 Chapter 16 Hatching Plans By Amethyst

Wherever the portal had brought us, it was dark and the air smelled of salt water. “Sarah?” I called out uncertainly as Elsaishe cast some ghost lights to provide illumination. We were on a beach somewhere with what looked like a jungle in front of us.

Lisa and Michelle were instantly alert as my apprentice muttered, “I don’t like this, this place reminds me way too much of when Michelle and I arrived on this world. Keep an eye out for sea monsters, everyone.”

“Wasn’t your portal supposed to take us right to Sarah and Annie?” Jen asked as we all looked around carefully.

“Yeah, but in cases where there’s not enough open space around, usually around four feet square, the portal will appear in the nearest open space that’s on solid ground. It wouldn’t do us any good if it opened with no space for us to make our way out of the portal,” I explained. “That jungle looks pretty dense so they’re probably in there somewhere.”

We made our way cautiously into the jungle, keeping our eyes peeled for any signs of predators and using Ellie’s ghost lights to guide us. The night sounds around us seemed to fade as the thundering sound of crashing water began to drown them out. It didn’t drown out the scream though.

That was Sarah’s voice, I was sure of it. Without a word, I ran toward the sound as well as the dense vegetation would allow with the others right behind me. As I ran, I debated whether or not to switch to my Succubus form. She could be in danger but it would also be really awkward if she happened to see me that way before I could explain everything. No, I had plenty of magick energy stored up, I could just throw a quick spell out if the situation was dangerous, and I had everyone else to back me up.

Mason shouted some sort of warning but I didn’t hear him until it was too late. I burst out from the tree line and into the pool of water at the base of the waterfall where my sister and Annie were locked in a very intimate and very naked embrace. My splashing had caught their attention though and I quickly turned away, my face as red as my hair.

Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t what they were doing that embarrassed me. I knew that they were lovers and I had gotten used to seeing plenty of that kind of thing while spending time around the Faery. I just felt kind of stupid for worrying about my very capable sister and her bodyguard/girlfriend and rushing in without thinking. Especially since we had a psychic, a cat girl, and two Faery who would have been able to sense any danger, even with me and Rebecca currently limited to our normal human senses.

Thankfully, I wasn’t alone in my embarrassment since both Jen and Rebecca had gotten a good look as well and both of them looked as embarrassed as I felt, but probably because they weren’t used to seeing that kind of thing unfolding in front of them. I kind of felt terrible for interrupting too. This was not the reunion that I had been expecting.

“Well… this is… umm… awkward. Sorry, we’ll… uhh… come back later,” Rebecca said as she quickly turned around to go and join the others back amongst the trees. I felt bad for my fellow pseudo-Succubus since she had gone out of her way to make this reunion less awkward by shifting into a form that resembled her former self as closely as she could manage until we could explain things. And then this happened.

I could hear splashing behind me as Jen and I went to join them as well and my BFF muttered, “I feel like Sarah should have sensed us coming, with Shannon having a full tank of magick again.”

“She was a little preoccupied, in case you didn’t notice,” Ziralin pointed out playfully.

“Oh, I noticed, and now I can’t un-notice,” Jen shot back, her gaze carefully on the others as we returned to the trees that we had emerged from.

It was several minutes later when Annie called out, “You can all stop hiding and join us in Sarah’s bunker now!”

Once we were all settled down with some local fruit and bottles of water inside Sarah’s porta-bunker that had been hanging from a tree on the shore my sister said somewhat sheepishly, "Sorry guys, but you can't believe how bored we've been. We didn’t think we’d be seeing any of you for months since there doesn’t seem to be any ambient magick energy on this plane. This is a desert island, with no other land in sight and with no magick energy to draw on, we were stranded here. There was nothing else to do so we decided to just enjoy ourselves until one of you could find us."

“We explored the whole island during our first few days here; nothing but jungle, this nice little grotto, and sandy beaches,” Annie said with a shrug.

Michelle leaned against Lisa and pouted. “So… let me get this straight, this whole time that we've been going through hell, you two have been having a vacation on a tropical island? That is so not fair!”

“It’s not like we could do anything to help, even if we had managed to build a raft we would have had no idea what direction to go in and it could have taken months to reach land that way. And with us on the ocean, casting a portal to us probably wouldn’t have worked since you need solid ground to anchor it,” Sarah said with a sigh. “Is this world really that bad?”

“I don’t even know where to start, Sis. The sooner we get out of here the better,” I told her candidly.

Sarah wrapped me up in a hug and damn it felt good to see my sister again, to have her hug me again. It seemed that she felt the same way as she said, “I missed you, Shannon. We missed all of you. Whatever you’ve all been through, I’m proud of you for managing to get through it and find us.”

“Yeah, we may have been trying to enjoy ourselves while we were stuck here but we needed the relaxation just to counter the stress of being worried about you kids,” Annie quickly added. “Once we figured out that there was no ambient magick energy here and that we were stuck on this island, we were worried sick about the rest of you. It’s good to see you all in one piece.”

“Speaking of, where did you and Lisa get all that magick energy that you’re hoarding? I tried everything that I could think of to find some but came up empty. And did any of you find Jalael, or do we need to set off in search of his spirit now?” my sister pressed.

“Actually, Ziralin and I found Jalael,” Ellie offered, summoning her Celestial form and showing off her wings.

Both Annie and Sarah grinned at that as Annie said with a look of relief, “Great! So as soon as you get us up to date on what we missed since coming here, we’ll figure out a plan for what comes next and get out of here. Unless you all want to enjoy the beach for a few days? This is supposed to be a vacation, and we haven’t even been gone a full day yet by Earth time.”

“Actually, I think we’d all like to get to any other Plane right now,” Lisa said with a shake of her head. “I’d take Heil over Nhekar right now. And before we go home we have to figure out how we’re going to explain our airplane vanishing, our pilot being gone, and Rebecca’s… umm… situation.”

At Sarah’s questioning look I sighed and shrugged. “A lot happened, Sis. The biggest thing is that Xuriel showed up… well, she was always with me really, ever since my birthday…”

After I explained everything that had happened to us, having Xuriel’s mark, the curse that came with it, and who and what Xuriel was to us, Sarah was quietly thoughtful. She and Annie took it surprisingly well when Rebecca and I showed them our Succubus forms. “Those skills helped you both to survive, and I’m grateful for that, Shannon. You’re my sister and nothing will ever change that. These are just new abilities, no different than when I got Ysuriel’s mark, and you know as well as I do that abilities aren’t good or evil, it’s all in how you choose to use them.”

After another big hug, the others went on to tell the pair what had happened with them, and then we told them all of the fate of the Sanori, and why there was no ambient magick energy around. Once we were done, I frowned and said, “The Sanori played with forces that they couldn’t understand and sure, they were able to extend the life of their sun by injecting more fuel into its core but it cost them their entire species.”

I took a deep breath and added, “That’s why we need to get out of here. The Nisadri Web has been adding all of that mass without removing any for who knows how long now. With all that extra mass, especially the heavier elements building up, I’m pretty sure that that sun is a ticking time bomb. It’s already well past its natural life and it’s going to keep getting bigger until it pops and then, goodbye Nhekar. It could be a thousand years from now or it could be a few minutes, I don’t want to wait around to find out.”

Suddenly, everyone was in a bit of a hurry to get off this screwed-up plane of existence and somewhere relatively safe. I had to agree with Lisa, I would take Heil over this place at the moment. So, as Sarah and Annie packed up their stuff for travel we all discussed what our next step was going to be.

Since we had been gone for less than a day by Earth time, Sarah thought that we could probably manage to figure out where search parties might be looking for our vanished plane, or rather its survivors, once we got back. She was also pretty sure that we were over one of the Great Lakes when we were attacked.

With that in mind, we could arrange to be found near the search area and say that the plane went down after engine troubles. Finding the remains of a small plane not equipped for water landings in one of those massive bodies of water in the middle of winter would have been damn near impossible. Our problem would be explaining the lack of our pilot and her daughter, not to mention how we got safely to the ground.

There was also the problem of how we got ourselves an extra Rebecca that looked nothing like the one we’d left with. She and her mom were well known by the airport staff. She could stay shapeshifted but that got uncomfortable after a while and we were going to need to come up with a new female identity for her later anyway, if possible. Her father still technically had partial custody of her and she was afraid of being sent to live with him and being forced to be a boy if she pretended to be her old self.

“It’s probably best to just say that both Rebecca and her mother went down with the plane,” Annie said with a sigh. “We can always arrange to ‘meet’ this Rebecca officially later and hide her in Tír na nÓg with the Faery or keep her at home until we figure out what to do about her identity.”

“I might be able to figure out the identity thing, I have Xuriel’s memories. All she did was mess with my school records though, she didn’t create anything big like a birth certificate or anything,” I offered uncertainly.

“I think that it would be easier to get her admitted to the hospital as a Jane Doe with no memory,” Annie countered. “If we do that and her prints don’t come up in a search and she doesn’t match the identity of any missing kids, she’d be able to establish a new identity, so long as someone is willing to take custody of her. Sarah, Talisha, or I could be the one who ‘discovers’ her and offer that. You’d have to be convincing though, Rebecca. Have you ever been fingerprinted?”

“I was told that I might have to be to get my name legally changed but Mom and I were having trouble doing that because my sperm-donor was being a dick and not giving his consent. So, legally, I still had to use my dead name. So, I haven’t been printed but I’m not sure if I could make it convincing,” Rebecca reluctantly admitted as she looked into the jungle.

Sarah frowned in thought before suggesting, “I could always use a spell to temporarily block access to your memories, but that could be a problem if your Succubus abilities surface while you’re in that state.”

“Ugh, yeah, I don’t even want to think about all of the ways that could go horribly wrong,” Michelle muttered as she rolled her eyes.

“We’ve got time to figure out Rebecca’s situation later if she’s not going back to her old identity,” Sarah said. “I’m more worried about how we’re going to tell people that we escaped the crash when Rebecca and her mother didn’t.”

Rebecca let out a despondent sigh. “I guess that we could have both been killed instantly when the plane hit the water if we were in the cockpit. Or you could have lost track of us when you parachuted to safety. But if you wanted to sell the story, the life raft and ‘chutes are all still in the plane.”

I placed a hand on Rebecca’s shoulder and gave a gentle squeeze, “You okay, Beks?” I had the feeling all of the talk about her mother’s death was hitting her hard.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine, Shannon,” she replied, giving me an unconvincing smile. “I say we just go back to hell, kick whoever’s ass that we need to kick, kill that bitch Khinara, and then we can grab the ‘chutes or the raft from the plane.”

“And what if the fire that I set to cover our escape damaged them? I don’t even know where your mom’s plane is well enough to make a portal there,” I pointed out. “I want to go finish things too, Beks, but we need to be prepared. Rushing in will just get us killed.”

“I agree,” Mason said with a nod. Those of us who are Celestials will need to fill up on magick energy somewhere because we should keep those crystals that Shannon charged in reserve. Trying to purify the magick energy in Heil in the middle of a fight will leave us vulnerable.”

Sarah looked pensive as she listened to what everyone had to say and then she sighed. “As much as I might hate it, we may have to mess with people’s minds a bit. Nothing too extreme, just altering perception a bit to make the rescuers believe that there is a damaged life raft with us when they find us.”

“If they’re guys, Beks and I might be able to convince them without having to do any serious mind magick,” I suggested. “I’ll need to cast the anti-Succubus spell on you and Annie though.”

Sarah nodded. Neither of us liked the idea but it seemed the only way to deal with the problem. With that decided my sister said, “Here’s what we’re going to do. Shannon will cast a portal to Tír na nÓg and then once she casts her protection spell on me and Annie, the two of us will go home and talk to Talisha to find out the status of any search for us. If she doesn’t know then we’ll just keep hidden from mortal sight and find out more directly. Once we know the search area we’ll look for a place for the rescuers to find us and I’ll cast a portal back to the Faery village so the rest of you can join us.”

“What about dealing with the Demons?” Rebecca pressed.

“Well, after how well the last flight went I think people would understand if none of us want to go on a plane again for a while,” Jennifer said thoughtfully. “I would rather not risk it until Khinara is dealt with anyway. Of course, we’ll still want to get away and de-stress though, even more than before, so I’ll ask my parents if we can just use the family cabin again. We can drive out there and be secluded for the rest of our vacation.”

“And while we’re there, we can make some preparations and then go to Heil to finish things once and for all,” Lisa added grimly.

“You really think that we can make it through the backroads of northern Ontario to get to the cabin in the middle of winter with our tiny cars?” my fiancée/Familiar asked dubiously.

“We don’t need to,” Annie pointed out. “We all just make sure we all meet at our new house and park the cars in the garage. Shannon and Sarah know the cabin well enough to cast a portal there, and that way we can be sure that no paparazzi follow us there.”

With our plan fully fleshed out and Annie and Sarah packed and ready to go, I cast a portal that would take us to our Faery troupe in Tír na nÓg. So long Nhekar, and good riddance. I wish that I could say that it was fun while it lasted, but it really wasn’t.