by Elle Casey
His eyes were closed and one wing was slightly bent, but he still managed to speak. “Holy chowder buckets, what did you have for dinner? Anchovies?”
I shook him a little and breathed out extra hard as I spoke. “Nooo. Doritoooes. Spiiiike fooound ‘em at the reh-heh-hest stop.”
He opened his eyes and tried to fly out of my grasp, but his one wing was too messed up. He stopped his escape to run his hands over it a little, straightening it out. A small kink remained, but I was pretty sure it was the one from before. When he was done, he hung down, arms and legs dangling toward the ground, his head tilted up to look at me.
“What now?” I asked.
“What do you mean, what now? I’m just getting started.”
“Oh. So you did that on purpose, is that it?” I bit my lip to keep from laughing.
“Yes, as a matter of fact, I did. Had to figure out if the spell was still in place, didn’t I? Wasn’t vulnerable to a speed entry?”
“If you say so.”
He lifted off from my hand and stared at me, hands on his hips. “Listen, elemental, you need to just step back and observe the master at work. No castle gets breached on the first try. Look it up in the history books if you don’t believe me.”
I looked over at the house and then back at him. “Castle?”
“Step back and observe, grasshopper. Watch me bring this witch to her knobby, misshapen knees.”
“Okaaay,” I said, taking a few steps toward the van. “Go on and do your nasty thing, spy master Tim.”
“Hey!” he whisper-yelled at me. “I told you that information was top secret! What are you doing talking about it out here?”
“Oops. Sorry.” Like anyone out here gave a flying pixie poop about Tim’s supposed spy career. But I gestured for him to continue anyway, because we didn’t have time to debate his status as Double-Oh Dumbass right then.
He waved me back. “Okay, so maybe take another few steps. I’m going to unleash.”
I did as he asked, not because I was worried about the buttdust but more because I was concerned about getting him so worked up that he’d stop cooperating. Tim being my last hope was stressful enough.
Tim put his arms and legs out wide. “First, I must remove my dragonfly charm.” He spun up straight, counter-clockwise, until he was just a blur. After a few seconds, his rotations slowed and he slowly drifted down. I saw absolutely no difference in his outward appearance, but I’d already witnessed once before how that charm worked on humans, and it was the real deal. “And now, for the dusting.” He started jiving around and throwing his arms and legs all over the place. Soon enough, bits of sparkly things started shedding off his body.
“Ooooh, preeeettttyyy,” I said, not entirely messing around. His sparkles came in all the colors of the rainbow. I wished I could tell him how gay he looked right then, but I didn’t want to distract him from his mission.
He flew toward the barrier, covered in the stuff. As he got closer, his flight path became more tentative. He no longer flew straight but zigzagged and had his hands out, like he was about to do his mime act again. I held my breath as he got closer and closer to the spot where he’d done his face plant earlier. When his hands and then his head went through and continued on, I let my breath out in a big whoosh. Where before he was blocked, he now found free space.
“Yeah, eat my dust, witch,” he said, very pleased with himself as he passed through and flew to the front door, no longer acting hesitant or mime-like.
“Hell to the yeah,” I said, jogging over to join him. “Pixie dust kills Hotel California spells. I like it.” I ran up the steps and stopped at the front door, nearly breathless. It had to be the adrenaline coursing through my veins making it hard for me to breathe because normally I could run a damn marathon with all the training I’d done. “Now what?” I asked, wiping the sweat off my upper lip with the back of my hand.
“Now you get your demon dagger boner going on and we storm the castle.”
The fervor I heard in Tim’s voice and the mania I saw in his eyes worried me a little. “You mean the B&B.”
“Yeah, right, whatever.” He grabbed his tiny dagger from his hip and held it out toward the door. Bonersville, go!”
I shook my head as I drew my jeweled weapon from the hilt at my waist. “Okay, if you say so. Just be careful.” I pictured the ogre inside and the creepy witch who was probably going to try and whack me with her cane again and my dagger slowly grew and turned into a full-length sword. Whether I’d actually be able to take the step of slicing and dicing the old bag with it was another deal altogether, but I wasn’t going to worry about that now. With this particular sword it was often just enough to flash it around, and fae started toeing the line. It had a particularly mean cut that was almost impossible to heal and everyone knew it. Its dark silver surface shone, somehow picking up light from the pixie dust and the stars.
“Open the door, Jayne. Let’s go kick some witch ass.”
“And ogre ass too,” I said, pushing the button down on the front door handle.
“Yeah. All of ‘em.”
“All of ‘em?” I asked as the door swung in.
“Yeah, all of ‘em,” Tim said, smiling like a deranged pixie. “Can’t you smell ‘em? This place is loaded with stinky fae.” And with that he flew through the entrance and left me in the doorway.
Chapter Eleven
AT FIRST IT WAS HARD to see anything, the entrance was so deeply dark. But then as I advanced, and the weird silver light coming from my sword intensified, I realized we were not alone. Standing sentry just ten paces away was the ogre I had seen earlier. Tim was nowhere around, but I didn’t worry about him; he was on a mission and I had to trust he knew what he was doing.
“Whoa,” I said in a near whisper as my eyes roamed the space. “This place is way bigger on the inside that it looks out there.”
“You should not have entered,” the ogre said, his voice echoing around the high walls. A curved staircase started off to my left and ended up near the ceiling at my right. A few pieces of furniture stood near the walls.
I snorted. “And you should not have kidnapped my friends.”
“The Fates do what needs…”
I waved my sword at him, cutting his words off with my razor-sharp tongue. “Yeah, yeah, ‘what needs must’. I’ve heard the drill before, believe me. And you know what? You can blow it out your big butt, Ogre, because I don’t follow the Fates’ plan, get it? I follow my own plan. I do what Jayne… needs must or whatever. Now tell me where my friends are…,” I pointed the sword out at him so he’d know I was serious, “…or die.”
“Your friends will not be harmed if you return home.”
“Nope, sorry. No deal. I’m not going home. I have a job to do, and I’m going to do it.”
“It is for your own safety.”
“Please. Since when did any of the Fates have my safety in mind?” I didn’t wait for him to answer because I knew whatever he said would be total BS. “Since never, that’s when. So step aside and give me directions to where my friends are, or suffer the consequences.”
He said and did nothing.
I shrugged. “Okaaay. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
I walked toward him with my blade out in front, expecting him to react, to dance to the side, or make a run for me. But he did nothing. I stopped when the point of the blade was an inch from his crotch. He was a lot taller than me, making his groin my best kill shot. That femoral artery is a real bitch when it’s sliced open.
I glared at him. “What are you doing?”
He blinked once. “Nothing.”
“I know you’re doing nothing, but why are you doing nothing? I’m about to cut your jewels off. I’ve done it before, you know. It’s not pretty. Not for me and not for the guy left suddenly nutless.”
He lifted his head and stared off into the distance.
“Oh, so you’re just going to accept your fate, is that it? You’re some big hero because you
’ll sacrifice the family jewels for that witch?” I dropped my sword a few inches, knowing I wasn’t going to attack an unarmed guy who wasn’t threatening me, but also knowing I wasn’t going to give up. “Well, forget it. You’re not going to guilt me into doing anything stupid.”
He stood at the bottom of a stairwell, and although there were doors to my left and right, I decided the thing he was blocking was probably the place I wanted to be. “Step aside, ogre, I’m going up.” I wiggled the sword at him.
He folded his hands over his crotch, the only sign I had that he might be worried about my weapon. Otherwise, he continued to stare off into space, not moving either left or right.
“Fine. You want to play games, I can play games.” I hated that this guy was trying to force me to cut him. I knew what would happen if I did; he’d end up with a wound that never healed, that eventually turned rank and sent him to the Underworld where he’d have to wait a really long time before he got a chance to come back to the Here and Now. I didn’t use that evil power on just anybody; it had to be someone trying to kill me. And a guy just blocking a stairwell did not fit the profile.
I walked over to the front door and grabbed a heavy wooden chair sitting just to the side of it. It had crushed red velvet upholstering that had seen much better days, and springs in the seat that had sprung a long time ago; the middle part sagged toward the floor. With one hand holding my sword, I used the other to drag it over to the part of the stairwell that curved away and up from the ogre. The only sign I had that he was even aware of what I was doing was a slight twitch in the corner of his right eye.
“If you so much as reach out to touch me, I will chop off whatever protruding part is closest,” I said, holding the sword out at him as I positioned the chair next to the wall leading up to the stairs. “And I hope you know that this is a demon sword and if I cut you with it…”
“I know the sword,” he said without changing his expression.
“Good. Then you know even a knick will eventually send you to the Underworld, so you better think about that before you do anything I don’t like.”
I stepped up onto the chair. My feet angled sharply downwards as they came into contact with the shit springs in the middle. I repositioned my moccasins to be closer to the frame, and once I felt steady, reached up with my free hand, grasping one of the wood bars that connected to the banister on the stairs.
“Last chance to move out of my way,” I said. Last chance to make this easier on me.
He didn’t move, so I repositioned my sword, making it possible to grab a bar with it still in my hand. As I reached up and locked my sword hand onto a bar, I cast him a glance, making sure he hadn’t moved. “I’m going up, ogre. Don’t try to stop me. I’ll friggin cut you.”
“So you have said.”
Smartass ogre. The muscles in my arms tensed as I slowly lifted myself from the chair and up toward the banister. My moccasins gripped the wall pretty well, all things considered; the wallpaper was old and crusty, flaking off as my feet walked up its surface. I was nearly to the point that I could put a foot on a stair about ten feet up from the ogre when I felt my sword slipping out of my hand.
“No, no, nononoooo…!” I whispered desperately to myself. But there was nothing I could do; it fell to the floor with a couple loud bangs on the way down and buried the tip of itself into the wood floor. I remained poised on the side of the stairwell, gripping the banister poles with both hands, my legs bent up below me and stuck to the wall.
My face burned with humiliation and fright. I couldn’t think of anything to say, other than, “Oops.” Then I quickly scrambled to get my feet secured on the edge of the steps as I hauled my upper body up to the banister using my arm and back muscles. They screamed with pain over the assault, but I had to beat the ogre to the stairs and try to reach the top before he tackled me. The only thing my body wanted to be doing right now was sleep, and yet there I was conducting some kind of crazy workout attack on myself. Niles would have been proud, anyway.
My toes caught the edge of the wood stairs, and I used the support beneath my feet to throw myself over the banister, my entire body flopping over the top of it and landing hard on the stairs on the other side. I tried to speak, but my words came out more like grunts. “Oooph. That hurt.” All the air had whooshed out of me as my ribs took the shock of the fall.
Panic took over. I had to get away, get upstairs and back on solid footing again. I’d put myself in a horrible position climbing up here and losing my sword. I’d made myself totally vulnerable to an ogre who probably wanted nothing more than to wring my neck for threatening to cut off his junk.
I scrambled to my feet, ending up facing down the stairs, barely able to breathe. I had to hang onto the banister for support; it felt like I was going to keel over from a heart attack. I was poised on the balls of my feet, waiting for the inevitable, sure I was about to be tackled, stabbed, or twisted in half by hands the size of dinner plates. But what I saw below me did not compute with the fears that were crowding my brain. Instead of flaming red angry eyes and a bulging head held up by a neck bigger than my thigh coming at me, I was looking at the back of an ogre head, and it was much lower on the stairs than I thought it would be. Man, does this guy suck at combat or what? Maybe it’s my ninja skills. Maybe I’m way more awesome than I thought. It’s possible I totally matrixed my last move and he hasn’t had time to even turn around yet. I liked the idea of that, even though I knew it wasn’t likely. My sword had fallen to the floor like gravity was working just fine in here.
Slowly, I straightened out of the crouched position I’d been holding. Resting my hand on the banister, I leaned over and saw my sword down below me, still stuck into the floorboards. No amount of concentration or staring was bringing it back to me either. Apparently, the come-to-me-demon-sword magic didn’t work in here.
I cleared my throat, waiting for the ogre to notice I got the drop on him. I could totally jump onto his back from here and take him down if I wanted to. I definitely wasn’t going to do that, but technically speaking, I could. Niles would have killed me if I’d ever put myself in the position that this ogre had; that crazy commando dwarf had probably said it a thousand times: ‘Never let them see your back!’
“Um, excuse me… Ogre?”
He didn’t turn or act in any way threatening, so I continued. “I’m uh, going to go upstairs now.”
“I do not recommend it,” he said, still not turning.
Somewhere behind me, I heard Tim yelling. It sounded like his war cry.
I wasn’t sure what to do next, but I knew I didn’t want to go upstairs without a weapon. “Would you, uh, mind handing me my sword?” I waited breathlessly for his response. When none came, I sighed. “Fine. Send me into the lion’s den without a weapon. See if I care.”
Tim’s voice came louder this time. “Eat my dust, troll!”
I swallowed with difficulty as I turned to go up the stairs. My feet felt like they were made of stone, they were so heavy. Trolls? There are trolls here and I don’t have my sword? I shook my head as I picked up the pace and took the steps at a jog. Oh well. Gotta die sometime, right? Might as well be while rescuing my friends…
Chapter Twelve
“DODGE! PARRY! DODGE! DUST! YEAH, baby! Eat my dust! Woo hoo!”
I followed the sounds of Tim kicking troll butt, past the top of the stairs and down a long hallway that ended in an arched entrance leading to a ballroom of sorts. It had a huge dimly lit chandelier in the middle, mirrors on all the walls, velvet covered benches lining the edges, and a lighted terrace that I could see vaguely on the other side of some dirty French doors. Standing around the outskirts of the room were my friends, who were doing absolutely nothing. They were just staring at the middle of the room, acting like Tim wasn’t in there, dusting everything in sight.
Three beasts I could only assume were trolls were dancing like it was 1999 in the far corner of the room, obviously overcome by the joys of being pixelated. Two m
ore were waving swords around in the air, trying to skewer themselves a pixie for dinner. Sparkly bits of Tim’s buttdust littered the floor.
“Let the dance begin!” a voice shouted out of nowhere. I would have bet a box of donuts it was the witch, but she was nowhere to be seen, and then I was too distracted to search for her by my friends who were moving away from the walls and coming toward me. The trolls ran from the room, pushing past me with Tim hot on their heels.
“Hey, guys!” I said enthusiastically. “Time to go.” I pointed to the French doors. “I suggest that way, since there’s an ogre in our way downstairs.” I couldn’t believe my luck. They were all being kept together and right next to an exit? Sweet. I guess the Fates don’t hate me too much.
Before I could move another step toward our escape, Spike was there, taking me into his arms with a sexy grin on his face. “Hello.”
“Hey, babe,” I said, pushing on his chest, “thanks for the hug, but we don’t have time for this now. Maybe later, though.” My arm muscles were straining with the effort of holding him off; it had been a while since he’d been this enthusiastic. I looked around for Scrum or Jared, hoping their daemon magic hadn’t abandoned them completely, because I was feeling the need for one of their special brands of bear hug coming on.
“Dance with me, Beautiful,” he said, giving me another one of his special smiles. He grabbed my hand and held it up, wrapping his other arm around my waist. “We have all night to get to know one another, but I hope it doesn’t take me that long.”
My face screwed up in a comical example of confused person. “Say what?”
“I saw you across the room, and I couldn’t help but come over and take you into my arms.”
Holy corny line alert. Then it hit me. “Oh my god, you’ve been spelled.”
“Yes. I’ve fallen under your spell, you saucy little witch.” He grinned again.
“Oh, for shit’s sake.” I yanked my hand out of his and slapped him hard across the face.
