by Kathy Lyons
Testy, testy, he mocked. Because the guy’s tone was aggrieved, as if he really was doing something against his own better interest. Which made Bruce distrust him even more. Anyone who said This is for your own good was lying. Still, the offer was getting tempting.
What kind of power would I get?
“I told you. You’ll get more.”
What the hell does that mean?
Bitterroot rolled his eyes. “Whatever you intend to be more.” He gestured to Bruce’s feet. “You want speed, yes? You would have more speed.”
Bruce did want to go faster. He was only three-quarters of the way there, and the sun was already up. He couldn’t see Laddin, and his heart squeezed in fear for the guy.
“It’s not just speed. If you intend violence, you’ll become vicious.”
“No,” he rasped. “Never.”
“Then you’ll have more strength to carry children out of fires. And more ecstasy when you ejaculate.”
Bruce winced at the graphic image that came to mind. My ejaculations are fine.
“But they could be more.”
Hell, the guy definitely knew how to tempt him. No one needed more—not in the way the fairy described—but Bruce sure as hell wanted it. Big, powerful guys had the advantage in firefighting. It was simple physics. And who didn’t want bigger and better O’s?
All I care about now is Laddin.
“Then take more power to help him. Because the earth sprites are angry.” The bunny eyes narrowed as he gazed into the distance.
What are they doing to Laddin?
“He should have bargained more carefully.”
What—?
But it was too late. Prince Hop-Along was gone.
Chapter 15
SMALL PRINT? WHAT SMALL PRINT?
BRUCE TRIPPED on something. The ground was uneven, and he’d been paying attention to Laddin, not where he planted his feet. But he could see Laddin now. The guy was fully human and leaning against the tree that was their destination. Bruce couldn’t see the fairies, but he knew they were there. Especially since his last glimpse of Laddin had shown the man talking. That might have been reassuring… if there hadn’t been a wildness in his eyes.
Suddenly Bruce face-planted with a grunt, banging up his head, getting dirt in his burns, and making for a very noisy entrance. He couldn’t even hear what Laddin was saying over his thundering pulse and his desperate gasps for air. He’d run here full-tilt after fighting a barn fire, and he was done. It was barely five minutes past dawn, and already his adrenaline stores were gone.
He meant to push himself to get up, but instead he breathed in dirt while the apple shimmered just in front of his mouth. All he’d have to do was roll forward and take a big ol’ bite.
He didn’t, but he was salivating for sure. By the time he got enough energy to push himself to his feet, he was surrounded by angry-looking cheeses.
Great. There was no way he’d be able to leap in and drag Laddin to safety now. Bruce took a moment more to catch his breath and slow his heart rate. And then, finally, he could hear what Laddin was saying.
“…three inches deep. C-4 is the easiest, but raw gunpowder will serve as well. The fuse should be….”
WTF? Bruce pushed forward, barely managing to avoid stepping on a militant-looking provolone. “Why is he talking about explosives?” He directed his question to the Grand Cheesy, whose name he couldn’t really remember. The fairy stood in front of Laddin with his arms crossed and his head cocked to the side. And hell, now that Bruce was breathing more normally, the smell hit him. It wasn’t a big concern right now, but he didn’t want to start gagging at a key moment.
The grand whomever turned and gave him a bow. Laddin was still talking about fuse types in a steady though desperate voice. “I greet you, Farting Friend,” said the Cheesy.
“I’m not—” He almost said a friend but realized that would be antagonistic, so he quickly adjusted his words. “—farting for you.”
“What the hell?” He heard Josh’s voice; then his brother stumbled forward. Bruce had been so focused on catching up to Laddin that he hadn’t realized he’d been followed. Josh had arrived. His brother could always run fast, though he too was obviously winded. Behind him was Bing, running silently through the field. And much farther back were Yordan and Nero. Bruce could see they wouldn’t be able to help. The fairy cheeses were already marshaling a perimeter. Josh was being cordoned off by string cheese, and though Bing might not see it yet, they were preparing to launch some kind of hard white cheese boulders at him from the slingshot they’d used the day before.
“Stay back,” Bruce ordered. “The American slices will suffocate you, the string cheese is like steel, and I think the blue cheese is poisonous.”
He watched as Bing nodded and slowed, pointing to his mouth before gesturing back at Yordan and Nero. Bruce guessed his gesture meant he’d tell the other two. Meanwhile Josh was frowning at Laddin. “Why is he talking explosives?”
“—det cord. That’s a thin, flexible plastic tube filled with pentaerythritol tetranitrate—”
“Quiet,” ordered a voice near Josh. “You do not have leave to speak!” It was a fairy made of crumbly cheese with blue streaks in it, with stilts for legs. As soon as it came near, Josh started gagging on the stench. Bruce held back his choking, but only because he was upwind.
“Stilton!” the Cheesy ordered. “Stand guard!”
“Aye-aye, Cheesy!” the stinky cheese answered with a salute.
Meanwhile, Laddin kept talking while his eyes rolled around in their sockets as if he was searching desperately for something.
Trying to keep his voice calm, Bruce spoke as respectfully as possible. “What have you done to Laddin? Why is he talking like that?”
“He broke our bargain.”
Yeah, Bruce already knew, but he tried for logic. “He came here. He was going to tell you what he’d learned.”
“He promised answers at dawn. He broke that promise.” The Cheesy folded his moldy arms. “So he gives answers now. All of them.” The cheese grinned. “Until I say stop.”
“And when will you say stop?”
The Cheesy didn’t answer, but he didn’t have to. Nero had come up behind Josh, and he rasped out the answer. “He won’t say stop until the victim dies. No food, no water, no rest. Just endless talking.”
Bruce turned around and stared at the cheese. “Until Laddin….” He couldn’t say the word dies.
“Yes. Unless we negotiate something different.”
It took a moment for Bruce to absorb that, but he always thought clearly in a crisis. That meant that he’d have to do the negotiating, even though he had no freaking clue how to do it. “Not we,” he said to Nero. “Me. I’m their… friend.” He turned back to the Cheesy. “Right? You and me, we can discuss this.”
Thankfully, no one scoffed at the idea that he could get Laddin out of this. They were all still recovering from the run, while Laddin kept talking as if he was reading out of a detonation manual.
“You can buy det cord at….”
“He failed to keep his promise,” Cheesy said. “I win.”
“Yes, you do,” Bruce soothed. “But what does the win get you? You don’t need to know how to set det cord.” Or at least he prayed they didn’t. “You need to know how to get to your heaven, right?” And when Cheesy just stared at him, Bruce said the word. “To Fairyland. You want to go to—”
“Fairyland! Fairyland! Fairyland!” The cheese chorus kicked up, right on cue.
“That was his first answer,” Cheesy said as he looked back at Laddin. “He said we cannot go. But he lied.”
At that moment, the fairy chorus changed from screaming “Fairyland” to chanting “lies.” That was bad enough, but while Bruce had been talking to the Cheesy, the group setting up the slingshot had redirected their white cheese chunks. They now pointed it at Laddin and took aim. Bruce didn’t even notice it until his peripheral vision caught the launch of a big hunk of s
omething that separated into three parts in the air, then nailed Laddin in the face, chest, and belly.
Crap!
At least it wasn’t that suffocating American cheese… yet. The boulders landed with heavy thuds, and Laddin cried out in pain. But with his next breath, he continued explaining det cord, though he sagged against the tree.
Now that Bruce looked closer, he realized Laddin wasn’t leaning against the tree—he was tied to it by string cheese. And worse, the places on his body pummeled by the cheese were already welting up.
“It wasn’t a lie—” Bruce argued, but Stilton had come closer and puffed a cloud of noxious air his way.
“You will take us to Fairyland,” the Cheesy said. “Smoked Gouda has seen it.”
“Everybody keeps saying that, but I don’t know how!” Damn it to hell, this was frustrating. “We spoke with the other fairies. The girl ones with the flower hats.”
Cheesy spun around. “They will surrender?”
Bruce shook his head. “They want to go to Fairyland too.”
“Fairyland! Fairyland!”
Bruce clenched his hands. He wanted to squash every single fairy here, but damn it, he’d tried that before. He’d flattened them, eaten them, and even farted them, but they’d come back stronger than ever. It was impossible to negotiate with illogical beings who didn’t die. Especially when they were perfectly capable of killing every man here.
Maybe if he focused on why they thought he would take them to Fairyland, he’d get some answers. He turned to Smoked Gouda, who was reclining in a dark fog at the base of the tree. “What exactly did you see?”
Gouda opened his eyes to half-mast, puffed out a bunch more smoke like a guy with a pipe, except that his body was the pipe, and then smiled in a dreamy kind of way. “You are the path to Heaven.” He closed his eyes again.
Fortunately Bruce had some experience negotiating with stoners, so he knew what to say to that. “I’m the path, right?”
Gouda nodded.
“And this path won’t do jack shit for you if you kill his friend.”
Gouda did absolutely nothing. Right. He had to talk to the Cheesy.
“Grand Cheesy, according to Smoked Gouda, I’m the path to Fairyland. Well, in order to do that, I need him”—he pointed to Laddin—“healthy, strong, and whole. You’ve got to release him.”
“It is our right—”
“Of course it is. I’m not arguing about that. I’m talking about your ultimate goal.” He took a single step forward and invested all his strength in his words. “I need him.”
The Cheesy wasn’t even listening. “It is our right to have answers.”
Bruce was so sick of people who talked about their rights without thinking about the damage they were causing. “How about this? What if I bring a fairy prince to you? Then you can talk to him about getting to Fairyland, huh? Maybe that’s the way to get you over there.”
Cheesy turned and gave him a big grin. “You are indeed great, Farting Friend.”
He really had to get them to use his real name. “But I won’t do it unless you release Laddin. Him and all of us.”
“Agreed!”
Really?
Then Cheesy did something truly disturbing. He ripped out one moldy eye and threw it at Laddin. It hit Laddin in the chest with a puff of grossness, but it worked. The string cheese released, Laddin slumped off the tree, and—best of all—he stopped talking.
Hallelujah! Except Laddin was going to fall on his face.
Bruce had fast reflexes, but even so, he barely got there in time. He caught Laddin around the torso and eased him down to the ground. Then he held Laddin tight through the shakes, murmuring all the comfort words he knew.
“I’ve got you. Just breathe. It’ll be okay now. I’ve got you.”
Except the interlude didn’t last long. As Laddin’s shakes began to quiet, Cheesy stomped in front of them. “Where is this prince?”
Looked like there was no rest for the weary. Fine. He looked up and said the words. “Bitterroot, I call you. Bitterroot, get your ass over here. Bitterroot, come now!” He was pretty sure all he needed to say was the guy’s name, but he wanted to sound official.
Right on cue, the fairy appeared, but his expression was a smirk. “Nice try, but I will not speak with them.”
“What? Why the fuck not?”
“Because they are earth sprites, and I don’t like them.”
Bigoted much? “Too bad,” Bruce snapped. He pointed straight at Bitterroot’s face and spoke to Cheesy. “There he is. Negotiate away.”
Except the Cheesy was looking every which way, as was everyone else in the clearing. “Where?” the Cheesy cried. “Where is he?”
“Right there!” Bruce repeated and pointed hard.
Nero groaned. “We can’t see him. He’s refusing to negotiate, isn’t he?”
Cheesy continued to scream, hopping up and down so that chunks fell off him in little tiny puffs of rancidness. “You promised I could speak with the fairy prince. You promised! And if I do not, then you all are forfeit!”
“All of us?” Fucking hell. Were they all about to start spouting meaningless facts until they died?
“That’s the deal with fairies,” Josh said, his voice tight with anger. “You pulled us into the bargain, so we all pay the price—which they get to pick, by the way, because you didn’t specify the forfeit.” Then he glared at Bruce as if he was supposed to know this stuff.
Meanwhile, Bitterroot held out the apple to Bruce. “Maybe if you take a bite, you’ll figure out the answer. Maybe you just need more brainpower.”
“Asshole,” Bruce muttered, but he started reaching for the apple because damned if he could figure out a better answer. At least until Nero spoke up.
“Bitterroot, Bitterroot, Bitterroot! Show yourself, you fucker. You owe me!”
The fairy spun around to face Nero, his body and outfit changing to normal-looking elf clothes complete with a human-like body, except for the butterflies clinging to his hair. That was new.
“Not anymore, I don’t!” Bitterroot snarled. But in this, he apparently made a mistake, because all around him, the cheese fairies gasped and pointed. Then they mobbed him.
Cheeses from every direction ran, jumped, and tumbled straight for the fairy prince. It was a swarm of fairy cheese, which would have been hysterical if the situation hadn’t been so dire. Cheesy was jumping up and down, screaming, “Talk to me! Talk to me!” But all the others were repeating his name over and over, “Bitterroot! Bitterroot! Bitterroot!”
For his part, the fairy prince began fighting as Bruce and Laddin had the day before. He slapped the creatures away. He kicked, flicked, and even bit when they came near his face. In truth, it didn’t look like he meant to chomp down. It was more like he was gritting his teeth, but one of the brie was a little too close. Or maybe it squeezed between his lips—it was hard to tell. But it didn’t matter. Once it was done, the cheese was inside him.
Bruce knew what came next. He’d lived through it yesterday. But it didn’t happen all at once. First, Bitterroot threw his hands down and bellowed, “No!” while a single butterfly flew up from his hair and disappeared.
The word reverberated through the field like an earthquake. Fairies tumbled away like sand thrown up by a storm. The only reason Bruce and Laddin didn’t fall was because they were already on the ground, but the others stumbled and went down. All except Bing, who was apparently part cat. And while everyone was recovering, Bitterroot got a horrified expression on his face.
It started out with a grimace, then went to a half-lurch as he apparently tried to burp. Yeah, Bruce knew from experience that wasn’t going to work. Then Bitterroot clutched his stomach and glared. “I hate earth sprites,” he growled.
Bruce could relate. He glanced at the others as they pushed to their feet. “I’d back up. He’s going to blow.”
And sure enough, there was no stopping it. Bitterroot hunched over. His face twisted, and his back arched
. And then there came the longest, most appallingly big fart Bruce had ever heard. It went on and on while everyone watched with horrified expressions. The humans scrunched up their faces in disgust and maybe a little sympathy. Because really, this had to suck. But the cheese fairies stepped forward with rapt expressions.
“Bilious Brie,” they whispered. They said it over and over again, their voices growing stronger with each repetition.
And similar to what had happened with Bruce, the pixie shot out from Bitterroot’s ass. But unlike Bruce’s experience, this fairy was not tiny. No, the cheese increased in size the longer Bitterroot farted. Brie started out the size of a finger, then became a hand, then a boy, and still it grew. While everyone watched, Bilious Brie formed into a roly-poly man of more than six feet. But true to the bilious name, the cheese had a greenish-gray cast to it.
“Whee!” he cried as he danced around in a circle of joy.
“Bilious Brie!” the cheese fairies exclaimed. Well, not all of them. The Grand Cheesy was noticeably upset.
“Talk to me! Talk to me!” he screamed, but it was useless.
Bitterroot gave everyone a contemptuous glare before he winked out of sight.
“No!” Cheesy screamed in true despair. And then he whipped around, pointing an angry finger at each man in turn. “He didn’t talk to me! He didn’t talk to me! You forfeit everything!”
“He spoke,” Bruce countered. “He said no.”
“And that he hated earth sprites,” Josh inserted. Which was true, except that didn’t seem to matter to Cheesy.
“That was to you! He spoke to you, not me!”
Unfortunately, that was probably true. And even worse for Cheesy’s mood was that all his fellow cheeses were now gathering around Bilious Brie. They leaped up on the guy, hugging him, which left Cheesy in a terrible position. And naturally, Bruce wasted no time in pointing it out.
“You seem to be losing your followers. I think the Grand Cheesy title is about to go to Billy over there.”
