1. Being late is not a bad Thing

Connor stood at the doorway looking out across what remained of his homeland in search of her. The vast expanse of untouched peat bog boarding the forest was alive with the chatter of birds, collecting their breakfast among the buzzing insects, flitting from clump to clump of wild heather. He strained to hear the distinctive drone of her frantically beating wings over the racket.

He whistled again, his impatience echoing within the tone. "For Christ's sake, Kayla, get a move on!" he complained.

Kayla looked down at him from her perch on the lower branches of the great oak and sighed in resignation. Playtime was over for another day, time to fold away her wings and take on human form for the next eight hours. Pushing herself off, she fluttered gently to the ground, her wings beating softly breaking her fall to land gracefully behind him. Her translucent wings shrank and disappeared from view as her form grew in size until she reached her full human height of 5'11" towering over his back.

"Ready when you are," she said.

Instinctively, he took a defensive stance as he spun to face her, his arms rising to protect his face. He dropped them again once he realized it was Kayla, "About flamin time!" Reaching up, he took her hand and dragged her toward the beat up old estate car, "We're going to be late for practice again, and Master Ayden'll punish us this time for sure."

"Relax, what's the worst he can do?" She laughed off his concern and got in to the driver's seat.

"I don't know," he grumbled, climbing into his side and adjusting the booster seat, "Maybe make us muck out the horses again, or empty the lake or worse."

"Pfft, we're the best hope he has of winning the title this year. He's not going to risk pissing us off just because we're a few minutes late."

The engine sputtered and rumbled to life at the third turn of the key in the ignition. Kayla ground it into reverse gear and it shot out on to the main road, narrowly missing the gatepost. The air shimmered and the door to her home vanished from sight leaving the unblemished bark on the trunk of the huge oak tree just like every other one in the forest.

"The guy is seriously anal when it comes to punctuality," he countered, "I heard he made Randy take on the ogre single handed because he had to take a piss after practice started last week. Then he refused to let Kieran fight with, what's her name, the pixie with the pink hair, because he had to go to the dentist and was thirty seconds late."

"Kieran and Illana are dating and he didn't let them fight because Kieran would be too concerned about protecting her that he wouldn't think about his opponent and probably get them both either hurt or killed. And as for Randy, arrogant little prick, he just needed taking down a peg or two."

The journey in to town was a short one and they made good time, only five minutes late. Once they reached the street for the main car park, however traffic ground to a complete halt. The street closed off. Three ambulances, a police car, and a fire truck sat outside the clubhouse with their lights flashing.

Kayla pulled over to the first available parking spot and dragged Connor from his seat, "Hurry, something's wrong, I think I saw Illana's pink hair on one of the stretchers."

He jumped from the seat to the ground and took off as fast as his little legs would take him, cursing for the first time in longer than he could remember the length of leprechauns' legs. "I wish I was tall like you," he complained wistfully, as she caught up with him easily, and scooped him off his feet to carry him because it was quicker.

"Yeah but you can only grant other people's wishes and I'm not wasting any of mine on something you really don't mean."

Police cordoning stretched across the entrance to the clubhouse, Kayla glanced quickly around then ducked under it, sprinting for the main door and ducking inside.

Blood and gore dripped from the ceiling and walls of the entrance hall, sliding in globules down the inner glass door. Backlit by the internal lighting, the colour intensified.

"What the fuck?" Connor whispered, wiggling to be set down.

They moved forward cautiously, watching where they stepped to avoid the lumps of flesh that surely belonged to someone they knew. Kayla withdrew the baton at her side and used it push open the door. The horrific sight that greeted them made Kayla close her eyes in anguish and the acrid smell of disembodied bowel contents left her gagging.

Scratching and shuffling to Kayla's right drew her attention to a blood soaked brown cloak that's design looked vaguely familiar, but it was the moan that she recognised. She rushed to his side skidding and sliding the last few feet on her knees, the entrails momentarily forgotten.

"Master Ayden?" She asked, terrified of what she would uncover when she lifted the cloak.

Men in black overalls dragged her away from the injured elf before she could move the saturated cloak hood from his face. His croaked pleas heard over the commands being issued for first aid.

"Kaaylaa...tro.llss," he whimpered, then his eyes rolled back in his head. Dead.