“Ah, my dear grandson and soon to be national hero! I am so pleased that I was able to catch you before you embarked on your perilous journey.”
“I’m pretty sure I liked you better when you were talking in a stupid accent and driving a cart,” I grumbled.
“I have gifts that will aid you in your journey,” Oberon said, passing a medallion on a leather cord up to me. I took it, turning it over in my hands. “It is a magical compass that will lead you to the dragon’s lair.”
“Just what I always wanted,” I said.
“I thought you always wanted a beer fountain in your living room and a stripper pole in the bedroom,” Skeeter chimed in from behind me.
“Well, yeah, I want that, too.”
“You’ve got a lot better chance with the beer fountain,” Amy said, surprising no one.
Oberon handed a shield to Amy. “This will protect you and any nearby from a dragon’s breath. It is resistant to fire, frost, lightning, acid, and noxious gases.”
“You’re gonna want to keep that handy,” Skeeter said. “There’s sausage in the basket, and you know how it makes Bubba fart.”
“I seem to recall somebody else getting a little gassy at our last stop in Fairyland,” I shot back, looking at Joe. The priest had the good grace to look embarrassed, but I still hadn’t forgiven him for farting in my face at Mab’s Court. He damn near made my beard fall out.
“This will transport you back to this keep, but only once it is immersed in dragon’s blood to activate it,” Oberon said, handing a clear crystal on a gold chain to Mama. “The crystal will glow red when it has been exposed to enough dragon blood. Then just say my name three times, and you will return to us.”
“I kinda wish we could get one of those for my car keys. I always lose those damn things,” Amy said with a smirk.
“Do you people take nothing seriously?” Oberon finally snapped, whirling around and glaring at all of us. “I am trying to grant you boons that will help you in this quest, and possibly keep you alive, and all you do is make jokes! Is life always like this with you people?”
Skeeter glared at him. “Don’t even start ‘you people-ing’ me. I will get all kinds of ethnic on your pointy-eared ass.”
Oberon looked confused. I leaned over to Skeeter and, in a loud whisper, said, “I think he means humans.”
“Oh. That makes sense, I reckon.” He waved a finger at the faerie prince. “But the point still stands. Humans are people, too, dammit.”
“I swear to God, Skeeter, if you say Human Lives Matter, I am going to pound you into the ground like a tent stake,” I said.
“Well, they do.”
“Yes, they do. Also not the point.”
Oberon cleared his throat. I turned away from Skeeter to look at my irritated fairy grandfather. “Oh, you ain’t done? Skeeter and I was just amusing ourselves while you finished up.”
Pops handed spears to Skeeter and Joe. “These spearheads are made of enchanted silver and will pierce the dragon’s hide, hopefully from a safe distance.”
Joe looked at Skeeter, then laughed a little. “If I make one spear-chucker joke, you’re going to stab me, aren’t you?”
“Nah, you’re family,” Skeeter replied, then whirled on him. “Of course I’m gonna stab you, cracker! Uncle or not, you right here carrying a damn spear next to me, so who’s the spear-chucker now?”
“Joe,” I said firmly. Everybody turned to stare at me. “What? Joe threw javelin in track when he went to high school. He won the State Championship! Skeeter ain’t never thrown nothing but shade in his damn life.”
My best friend shot me a dirty look, but he knew it was true. After a resigned shake of the head from Oberon, we loaded into a couple of wagons and were on our way. Amy rode point on a white horse with a silver mane, I took the lead wagon with Mama, and Skeeter and Joe took up the rear in a second wagon. A quick look through the cargo showed that regardless of whether or not she actually wanted us to return, Titania outfitted us well for a journey. There was plenty of food, bedrolls, and a couple bows with several arrows. I didn’t bother telling anybody there that I was pretty sure our whole party flunked archery in summer camp. Besides, we had guns.
We rode out of the gates of the keep, then down the main thoroughfare of the city to the southern gate. A pair of guardsmen escorted us to the outer walls of the capital, then turned around and went back. We rode for an hour southward, then I pulled the wagon off to the side of the road and called Amy to circle back to us.
“What’s up, Bubba?” she asked as I got down from the wagon.
“Well,” I said. “Anybody got a plan to find my sister and get the hell out of Fairyland?”
“Aren’t we hunting a dragon?” Amy asked.
“Not if we don’t have to,” I replied. “Now I don’t know anything about dragons except what I learned from Skyrim and Anne McCaffrey novels, but those all told me they’re big mean sonsabitches that breathe fire and eat people. Neither of those are things that make me want to go screwing with them. What about you?”
“Me neither,” she said. “But if Oberon has your sister, he’s not going to let her go until we kill the dragon, is he?”
“Nitalia was not in that palace,” Mama said.
Every head turned to her. “How can you be so sure?” Joe asked.
“I cast a spell the first night we were in the dungeon. She was in Tisa’ron, but not for some time.”
“Don’t you think that goes on the list of shit we ought to know?” I asked.
“I only learned this after we were imprisoned in the dungeon. As soon as we got out of the dungeon, you got us into an almost certainly fatal quest. It’s not like I’ve had an abundance of time, Robbie.”
She might have been absent for a couple decades, but she was still my mama, and she still knew how to put me right in my damn place. I just nodded.
“Well, Mrs. B., do you have any idea where your daughter might be?” Skeeter asked.
“I do not, but if I am given a little time, I can likely repurpose Robbie’s dragon-finding compass to locate Nitalia. No doubt that was my father’s intent when he gave it to us.”
“You got a lot of faith in a dude who sent us on a quest that will probably kill us,” I said.
“Oberon’s quest will only pose a threat to us if we undertake it. If we ignore it completely and continue on our true mission to find my daughter, then all in the Summer Court will merely assume we are dead.”
“Faeries are sneaky,” Amy said. “I like it.”
“You would, Miss Black Helicopter,” I grumbled.
“You’re just mad you won’t get to fight a dragon,” Amy said. She wasn’t wrong. She turned to Mama. “What do you need to cast the spell?”
“Usually I would need something that belonged to the person I am trying to track, but since we have two relatives here, a small sample of blood from myself and Robbie should allow me to craft the spell. Then I will need a few plants that should be easy to acquire in these woods, a scrap of moss, and a flat circle to cast in.”
“Wait a second, can we back up to the part where you need my bloo—OW!” I yelped and jerked my arm away from Amy, who stood next to me with her dagger out.
She held the blade out to Mama, a few drops of my blood on the tip. “Will this be enough, or should I stick him again?”
Mama grinned and took the blade, drawing it across the back of her forearm, mingling our blood on it. “This should be sufficient. Thank you, dear. Now, Robbie, will you come with me into the woods?”
“Didn’t a whole bunch of bad musical theatre come out of those three words?” I asked, following her off the path. I turned back to the others. “Y’all try to set up some defenses and don’t get dead before we come back.” Joe snapped off a sarcastic salute, Amy ignored me, and Skeeter shot me the bird. About the response I expected. I followed Mama through the underbrush, digging a bandana out of my pocket to tie around my bleeding forearm.
We walked for a hundr
ed yards or so, until the road was way out of sight, then Mama stopped in a little clearing surrounded by massive oak trees. She walked around the clearing three times clockwise, then three times counterclockwise, then looked up at the sky with her eyes closed. She took a deep breath, held her hands straight out from her sides, and just stood there, meditating or praying, I reckon. I got bored after a few seconds and sat down on the ground with my back to a tree. The Judge was digging into my back, so I pulled the holstered pistol out from the waistband of my jeans and put it on the ground beside me. Mama stood stock-still for a long time, long enough for me to wonder how she was holding her arms out like that for so long.
After what felt like half an hour, but was probably less than five minutes, she let out a deep breath and relaxed. She looked over at me, and her eyes looked different. Where before they had been ice blue, now they were a brilliant green with bright flecks of gold that I could see from ten feet away. “That’s better,” she said, and I noticed that her hair didn’t look the same, either. When we left the road, white streaks shot through her dark hair, proclaiming loudly both her age and her membership in the Winter Court. Now those same white streaks were blond and red, and the jet-black hair was more a dark auburn.
“Um, Mama?” I said, patting the ground next to me for the butt of my gun.
“Yes, dear?” she asked, turning to me with a gentle smile. Her eyes flashed gold, and I felt a wave of comfort wash over me. What was I worried about? This was my mama, who loved me more than anything. My mama, who would never hurt me— I gave my head a hard shake and scooted away from her on my butt.
“What the hell is going on, Mama? Why are your eyes funny?”
“Oh, that? I’m sorry, Robbie.” She shook her head, and the glow in her eyes faded, along with the warm fuzzy feeling I had. It was good to be back to my grumpy-ass self. “I had to delve deeply into the Summer magic to be able to cast here. As a child of the Prince Consort and the Queen of Winter, the land will allow me to work magic in either realm, but while I am within one kingdom’s borders, I must adhere to its rules and whims. Summer magic wants to be warm and comforting, promoting light and life and warmth. Thus, the minor changes in my appearance while I am here. I assure you, I will return to my normal appearance when we return to the mundane world.”
“Yeah, but what about me feeling so…strange?” I asked.
“You are of my blood, even if the magic was never brought to life within you. The land recognized you and wanted you to feel good.”
“Why?” I asked.
“I’m sorry?” She tilted her head to the side, like a dog that caught the car it was chasing and now had no idea what to do with it.
“Why did Fairyland give a shit if I was happy?”
“Because if you’re happy, I’ll be more likely to stay. The lands of Winter and Summer are as much in contest as their rulers, and if Summer thought it could persuade me to stay by making you happy, it would certainly attempt to do that.”
A wave of bitterness roiled up from my gut, and I scowled down at the dirt. “Shows what this stupid Fairyland knows. I couldn’t keep you anywhere, no matter how I felt about it.”
I heard the sharp gasp and looked up. The hurt on her face looked like I’d slapped her, and I thought I saw tears welling up in her eyes. I couldn’t make myself care. Twenty years might have passed, and it might have been a life or death situation for her, but I still hadn’t managed to forgive her for running out on me and Jason way back then. I sat back down, positioning my pistol within easy arm’s reach. “You gonna cast your spell, or do I have to get stabbed again?”
Her eyes flashed, but she dipped her head as if to say I deserved that.
I didn’t disagree.
“I’ll begin. Please remain alert. This is a relatively minor working, but I am tampering with a spell laid on the gem by the Summer Queen herself. I would not put it past Titania to have taken precautions against my tampering.”
“What does that mean?” I asked, sitting up straighter.
“Basically, if anything horrible runs into the clearing…kill it.”
Chapter 7
Mama used her knife to carve a rough circle into the dirt, then reached into a pouch on her belt and sprinkled something I couldn’t really see into the air. She started muttering in a language I couldn’t understand, and my interest in spells went from minimal to zero in a big hurry. That left me on the outside of a magical casting circle, watching a woman I barely knew cast a spell I didn’t understand, all the while stuck in a forest in a magical dimension where just about everything wanted to kill me. All in the hopes of finding a sister that I’d never laid eyes on.
And there was a dragon out there somewhere.
My life is weird enough on a good day, but this shit took the absolute cake. I leaned back against a tree and closed my eyes, thinking back on happier days, like the last time I went fishing.
Never mind, that got interrupted by Skeeter calling about a case.
Then there was the time we went out in Nashville and we all got drunk.
Skip that one. We ended up going to damn Alabama. There was a demon in that mess.
Then there was…nope. Well, maybe…nope. What about…not a chance.
After a few minutes of digging around in my memories looking for something good to dwell on so I wouldn’t think so much about being stuck in Fairyland with a mother I hadn’t really forgiven for abandoning me twenty years ago and coming up empty, I decided I needed to do some walking around. I stood up, my knees popping like a .22, and slipped the Judge back into the small of my back. I looked over to Mama, but she was kneeling on the ground, sitting back on her heels, with her face turned up to the sky. I thought about calling out to her, but her eyes were closed and there was a soft golden glow around her, so I figured she was fine. Anyway, I couldn’t see anything around us, so she oughta be fine while I stretched my legs for a minute. Maybe I’d even find something worth eating while I was out there. There was some jerky in the provisions Mama got us from Oberon’s place, but fresh beats dried any day of the week.
It was a really pretty forest, all thick old-growth oaks and maple, with the occasional spruce and pine mixed in with the hardwoods. Moss carpeted the ground, muffling my steps and making it a little tough to tell where I’d been. I tried to keep Mama in sight while I wandered, but it didn’t take long for me to lose sight of her between the trees. I was pretty confident that I could find her, even in an unfamiliar forest. Besides, if I got into any real trouble, Bertha could shout loud enough for the gang to find me anywhere.
“Hey,” I said a while later. “What’s that?” Nobody answered, of course, but it didn’t make it any less a good question. Something blinked between the trees, like a lantern. That’s when I noticed that it was dark all of a sudden. Damn magical forests. It was just after lunch when I left Mama, and I ain’t been walking more than half an hour. “Mama? Is that you?” I called in the direction of the lantern. I reckoned she knew what was going on with it getting dark so fast, so I oughta head over to where she was. Hell, she might have even come looking for me. She still wasn’t going to win any Mother of the Year awards, but with Mab as an example, it ain’t like she had much to learn from.
I walked toward the lantern, but it ducked behind a tree, and I lost it. I caught sight of it a minute later, even deeper in the forest. “Hey, Mama! I’m back here!” I hollered, but the light just kept moving away from me. “Alright, dammit, I’m sorry. I was a dick. Now slow down a little bit and let me catch up.” The lantern paused, then moved again, but slower this time. Okay, well, she might still be pissed, but at least she’s gonna let me catch up before we bust out of the woods and the whole crew sees us fighting.
Except I didn’t catch up. I lost sight of her for just a second, then came around a tree, and there was her damn lantern, bobbing along in the now full-on dark, maybe fifty yards away. I couldn’t see nothing of her but her lantern light, but I just put my head down and stumbled and bumbled my
way through the underbrush after her. Branches and vines that seemed to almost bend out of my way a little while earlier in the light of day now reached out to trip me, snag my shirt and shoulder holster, or tangle in my braided hair as I shoved my way after Mama and her bobbing, weaving, irritating damn lantern.
Finally, after what felt like an hour fighting through the foliage, I burst out onto what I expected to be the side of the road where our wagons and my friends waited for us. Except I wasn’t anywhere like that. Nowhere like that at all.
No, I was in the middle of a ring of glowing toadstools at least twenty feet across, with a carpet of green moss underfoot. The clearing was immaculate, without even a branch or a sprig of grass to be seen. There was just a smooth carpet of moss, me, a floating ball of yellow light, and one of the most gorgeous women I’d ever seen.
“Welcome,” she said, and her voice sounded like a symphony, the softest lover’s whisper, and a dinner bell all rolled into one. She was tall, almost as tall as me, with long arms, long legs, and long blond hair tinged with green. I couldn’t tell if her hair was really green, or if that was something coming off the mushrooms.
“Uh…hi,” I said with a stupid little wave like I was some teenage boy looking at his first hot girl, instead of a grown-ass man.
“I am Vlanriel, and these are my woods.”
“I’m Bubba. I’m just passing through.”
“Are you?”
“Well, yeah, I wasn’t planning on sticking around. We’ve got to…” All of a sudden, I couldn’t remember what I was supposed to be in such a hurry to do, or who I was supposed to be doing it with. It couldn’t be all that important, could it?
Hot Blooded - A Bubba the Monster Hunter Novella Page 4
