by Kathy Lyons
“Mother,” Wulfric said in a dignified voice. “Please tell me you brought clothes with you.”
Lady Kinstead paused as she turned to her son with an ethereal grace. “No. Why would I?”
“Because we’re naked and in the middle of nowhere, Wisconsin.”
“Speak for yourself,” answered Stratos as she pushed to her feet and stretched. She still wore a sports bra and shorts, though they were tattered.
“Forget the clothes,” Nero muttered as he sat up and rubbed his face. “Does she have a phone?”
“Why?” she asked, her brows drawn together in confusion.
From across Nero’s lap, a large brown wolf straightened up and shook out his fur. Then there was a sudden center of cold air and a golden light before Josh appeared in his human body. “I’ve got one,” he said as he pulled an iWatch face off the chain holding his dog tags. “Give me a sec to connect.”
Bruce was torn between being impressed by his brother’s foresight and wanting to mock the guy for being unable to go anywhere without his tech. But before he could say a word, Lady Kinstead stepped daintily between two wolves who apparently intended to stay in that form. She came right up beside Bruce, then dropped to one knee before him, putting them eye to eye. Then she asked her question.
“It’s Thursday. Do you have the answer?”
It was Thursday? Already? Had they really been running for two days? Shit! And no, he did not have any answers. In desperation, his gaze landed on Laddin, who was looking at him with hope shining through his eyes. In fact, a quick glance around told him that everyone was looking at him expectantly. Even the wolves.
“I’m sorry—” he said, but Wulfric interrupted him.
“Start with the basics. You must have figured out your power. You made the moon, after all.”
“Not me. I….” His gaze went back to Laddin. “Well, maybe. I mean, I figured out the light bulb.”
Yordan sighed. “Not exactly rocket science.”
Josh rounded on the guy with surprising ferocity. “Give him a minute. My brother may not think logically, but he does think.”
“Hey!” Bruce said, a little insulted by the “not logically” part of that statement, but before he could voice it, Yordan grunted his acceptance.
“Instinct guy. I can get behind that.”
“Everyone shut up!” Laddin snapped. “This isn’t easy on him, and commentary from the peanut gallery only muddies the water.”
“Mixed metaphor there, Laddie,” Stratos said, but then she bit her lip at Laddin’s glare.
And then everyone was looking at him again. Fortunately, Laddin grabbed his hand and his attention. “Don’t look at them. Look at me. What did you figure out about the light bulb?”
“Not what. Who. It’s you, Laddin. I’m the current, you’re the light bulb. You made the moon, not me.”
Laddin took a moment to absorb that. Then he shrugged. “Not one of my best ideas.”
To the side, Bing rolled his shoulders as if unkinking his back, and his black hair flowed about his shoulders in a very cinematic display. “We did not eat any rabbits or deer. It was a successful run at a time when we all needed the break.”
That was definitely true—except Bruce had failed at the one thing he was supposed to do. “I didn’t see the demon. I don’t know where it is.”
Lady Kinstead stroked across his jaw. The touch was gentle, and there was no censure in her voice when she spoke. “Are you sure?” she asked. Though he didn’t feel it in her tone, her question reverberated with judgment all through his body.
“No, I’m not sure!” he snapped. “I’m not sure of anything. And it doesn’t help when you put the fate of the world on my shoulders and no one tells me the basics. It would have helped to know that there are two different Fairylands.”
All around him, wolves and people straightened up in confusion. He saw looks shoot back and forth between them, but it was the wolf—now man—with the whispery voice who said what everyone else seemed to be thinking.
“There are two Fairylands?”
“Yes,” Bruce huffed. “That’s what Erin Rodger-Dodger said. That they made Earth Fairyland, but they want to go to Fairy Fairyland.” He struggled to put meaning to what he’d seen before going wolf. “The pixies are Earth fairies, right? They take our thoughts and make moons and stuff. And Bitter you-know-who, the fairy prince, is from Fairy Fairyland. He doesn’t have anything to do with what the pixies make.”
He took a deep breath. “So there are two Fairylands, and nobody told me.” It was a lame way to end his statement. The truth of the matter was that he’d been tasked with finding the demon, and he’d failed spectacularly. Except when he looked around, everyone was looking at him with shock and a little bit of excitement in their eyes.
“What?” Bruce asked. “What did I say?”
“We didn’t know,” Wulfric said, his voice low and his expression thoughtful. “Fairyland is so complicated. I assumed that the pixies created another part of it, another realm, so to speak, in a vast land.”
“No,” Bruce said. “It’s an entirely different place. Or dimension. That’s what Erin said.”
“Created from our thoughts,” Laddin said in a bright voice. “It makes sense. The pixies use our thoughts to create Earth Fairyland, whereas Fairy Fairyland is—”
“Created from fairy thoughts,” Josh said. “It’s like the difference between Windows and Mac OS. The end products may look similar, but they’re not the same at all.”
Stratos nodded. “And they don’t play well with each other.”
Okay. So this was interesting, but it didn’t solve the problem. They still didn’t know where the demon was. Unless….
Bruce exhaled loudly, the realization hitting him broadside. Then he asked a question to everyone and no one in particular. “You guys searched everywhere for the demon, right? But who searched Fairyland?”
The man with the whisper voice answered. “A Fairy Queen.”
“She could search Fairy Fairyland, but what about Earth Fairyland?”
Silence.
Bruce groaned. “Nobody asked a pixie?”
Nero shook his head. “They’re not exactly easy to pin down.”
“Find, pin down, or talk to,” Yordan agreed. “In fact, they don’t often talk to anyone except you, Sir Farts-a-Lot.”
“He’s Windy Wolf to the fireworks fairies,” Laddin said.
Lady Kinstead smiled, and the expression was half-mad even as her touch across his cheek was tender. “So, young one, what do we do? How do we save the world?”
“We need to ask the pixies,” he answered. “Either the regular fairies or the cheese ones.”
Laddin pushed to his feet and looked around. “We’re not near the tree where the cheese ones hang out. And the fairy circle was….”
Josh was looking down at his iWatch. “We’re on the far side of the lake. Ground zero is over there.” He waved to the east where, sure enough, Bruce could see the black edge of the lake and the dead trees that surrounded it.
It didn’t matter. Bruce was pretty sure he could call them. After all, some things worked the same whether it was on a Mac or a PC. Clicking worked the same. So, calling out fairy names three times should bring them in an instant.
Then he glanced around at the nearly two dozen people and wolves sprawled on the ground. “I suggest all of you back away.”
Most of them did. Wulfric was especially spry as he bounded to his feet and backed about fifty yards away. “I’ll just confuse the issue,” he said as he moved.
“As will I,” echoed his mother as she joined him.
Josh pointed to a hedge that bordered a road. “I’ve got a support car coming with clothes from there.”
“We’re backing up,” Whisper Guy said. “But we’re not leaving you.”
Everyone nodded, and Bruce was grateful for their support. Laddin, however, remained staunchly by his side, and when Bruce turned to say something, he held up his han
d.
“I’m staying,” he said firmly. “You’re not negotiating with those crazies alone, so don’t bother arguing.”
Bruce grinned. “I was going to say thank you.”
“Oh. Okay. You’re welcome.”
With a last look around, he took a deep breath and started to call out. Except when the moment came, he realized he couldn’t exactly remember the full titles. “Oh shit,” he cursed, but Laddin squeezed his arm.
“Grand Cheesy Fetid Feta and Dollarback Erin Rodger-Dodger, we call you. Fetid Feta. Erin Rodger-Dodger. Fetid Feta! Erin Rodger-Dodger!” The last was said with a note of command, and Bruce was pleased when the two fairies appeared before him.
Sadly, that feeling didn’t last for long.
Chapter 23
NEGOTIATING WITH TODDLERS
THE GRAND Cheesy arrived while Laddin was calling Erin. The still-big fairy blinked into the space before them, midscream.
“Me!” He stomped his foot hard enough to shake the ground.
Then, while Laddin was drawing breath to call again, Erin Rodger-Dodger appeared. She took a moment to look around, spotted the Grand Cheesy, and pointed at him. “You!”
She didn’t have the size or voice to match Fetid Feta, but when she stomped her foot, the ground trembled just as much. Then she rushed forward like a football player and banged into Cheesy’s leg.
“You!” she repeated.
He looked around, clearly disoriented, but the moment he saw her, he stomped his foot again. “Me!”
She tumbled backward from the force of his stomp but then quickly regained her feet as she adjusted her hat as if she was tilting a Stetson across her brow. Then she threw something at him and a tiny firework exploded across his knees. The burst of bright red was impressive for such a tiny charge.
“You!”
“Stop that!” Bruce snapped, but the fairies were too involved with each other to notice. Each time they bellowed or stomped or exploded something, the impact seemed to grow.
“Feta! Erin!” Laddin tried to step between the two, but it didn’t work. Worse, the next firework burned his legs, and he jumped back in pain.
Bruce caught him, of course. And one shared glance between the two of them was all they needed to make a decision. They needed to get the fairies’ attention, and yelling wasn’t working.
Laddin reached out at the exact same moment that Bruce grabbed his hand. The minute they connected palm to palm, warm current flowed straight from Bruce into Laddin. He was careful this time with his thoughts as he pictured both fairies silent and paying attention to him.
“Be quiet,” he said. He didn’t yell it, but the sound seemed to roll through the field.
Both fairies abruptly stopped.
Wow. Laddin looked at Bruce.
“Can you maybe send less power?”
Bruce nodded. “I’ll try. Maybe try to draw a little less too.”
“Got it.” This was going to take a little experimentation. Meanwhile, he invested his next words with less force, more casualness. “So we’d like to talk to you, if that’s okay.”
Erin turned to him. “We hear you, Windy Wolf Rider.”
Laddin frowned a moment, wondering at the label. Was that a reference to sex with—
“Not important,” Bruce muttered.
Definitely not important. Embarrassing, yes. Important, no. “So…,” he said as he looked at Bruce. Up until now, Bruce had taken the lead in the fairy negotiations. He was the one with the fairy power. But it was now flowing from Bruce to him and the pixies were looking at him, so he decided to take a stab at a solution.
“We’re looking for the demon that fried the lake and is poisoning the ground. Do you know where he is?”
In unison, both fairies said, “Yes.”
Laddin inhaled sharply, as did Bruce. In fact, he guessed that anyone within hearing distance took an excited breath.
“Will you take us there?”
In unison, both fairies said, “No.”
Crap.
“Why not?” Laddin asked.
Erin lifted her chin. “He is very big.” She glared at Fetid Feta. “Much bigger than you.”
“We want to meet him anyway,” Laddin pressed.
“And we didn’t make him that size,” Bruce added.
Erin stomped her foot. “Yes, you did!” Fortunately, her foot stomp didn’t echo through the field. That was progress, but the way Fetid Feta bickered back at her was not.
“No,” Feta said, pointing at Erin. “You made him big with power from them.” He swept this finger at everyone in the field.
“You are big!” she snapped back. “With power from him!” She pointed at Bruce.
Wow, it was like trying to talk to toddlers. Or two spoiled actors. Laddin held up his hand and poured a little of Bruce’s power into his words. “Answer my question,” he said firmly. “How did the demon become so big?”
Both of them rolled their eyes. It would have been comical if they didn’t so desperately need the information. Feta pointed at Bruce.
“You thought.”
Erin pointed at herself. “And I made him bigger.”
Feta pointed at Laddin. “You thought.”
“And my friends made him bigger.”
Then Feta pointed past them at Nero. “You thought.”
“And we made him much bigger!”
Feta turned and pointed at Josh, who stood beside Nero. “You thought—”
“I got it!” Laddin interrupted before Feta pointed at everyone in turn. “Every human nearby thinks about the demon—”
“And he gets bigger!” both Feta and Erin said at once.
“Because that’s what you do?” Bruce asked. “The Earth fairies take thoughts and make them into things. Like the moon and the—”
“Fireworks!”
“We do it too!” Feta cried. “We do it here.” He pointed to the ground. “And there.” He pointed to the distant bushes. “And over there.” He pointed to the field to the right. “And—”
“We got it!” Laddin interrupted.
“But how does that make the demon bigger?” Bruce asked.
Laddin didn’t wait for the fairies to answer. “Because everything we think creates their world, which—I guess—bleeds over into our world. The demon originally came from a short story that the locals told. That’s how we know how to kill it. Because Josh read the story and told us.”
Laddin looked back at Josh, but it was Wiz who caught his attention. The man quietly pulled out a gun from a tiny pocket on his dog tags. The guy was naked and the pocket was about the size of a quarter, but he pulled out a pistol anyway and showed it to Laddin before hiding it behind his back. It was the way the townspeople had killed the demon in the short story—a special bullet, right between the eyes.
Then Laddin looked back at Bruce, who was still sorting through how the fairies worked. “They take our thoughts and create things in Earth Fairyland.”
“Which sometimes bleeds over into our world. That’s how they created a moon that was powerful enough to affect the werewolves in our world.”
Bruce rubbed a tired hand over his jaw. “I hated fairy tales growing up.”
That wasn’t the point. Laddin focused again on the fairies. “So the demon is in your Fairyland—Earth Fairyland. We know he’s very big, but we still want you to take us to him.”
“No.” Again, both fairies spoke at once.
“Why not?” This time, Laddin and Bruce spoke at once, which was weird and kind of cool.
“Because,” Erin said as she pointed at the two men. “You cannot go there.”
“He must come here,” Feta finished as he pointed at the ground.
Laddin looked at Bruce, who nodded. “Then bring him here.”
“No!” Erin cried out. “You will make him bigger, and he is big enough.”
“We won’t make him bigger.”
“Promise?” Feta asked.
“No!” That answer came from at
least three people behind them. Laddin had no idea who, but he didn’t need the reminder that promises were never easy with fairies.
“I promise that we don’t want to make him bigger.”
Erin wrinkled her nose. “That is not a promise, that is a wish. You don’t wish him bigger, but he is getting huge anyway!”
Feta nodded. “Huger than huge.”
“The hugest!”
Laddin interrupted before they got distracted again. “What if we made him smaller?”
Bruce leaned in. “What if we made him go away completely?”
Erin folded her arms in an angry pout. “All you do is make him bigger!”
Laddin looked at Bruce. “That’s because we keep thinking of him. All of us do. We keep thinking and worrying, then the media spins story after story—”
“And he gets bigger,” Bruce muttered. “But if we get him here….” His gaze hopped back to Wiz, the implication clear. If they got him back here, then Wiz could shoot the thing between the eyes. Problem solved.
Erin shook her head, her frown clear beneath her flower hat. “I will not bring him here. I will not bring him anywhere near you!”
“I will,” Feta said, his voice smug. “I will bring him right here if you take me to Fairyland.” He grinned as he lifted his head. “I want to be even bigger!”
Bruce sighed. “I told you. I can’t take you to Fairy Fairyland. Only Bitt—” He abruptly changed his word, presumably because he didn’t want to say Bitterroot’s name out loud. “Only the fairy prince can do that, and he’s already said no.”
Feta folded his arms and lifted his chin in defiance. “And I told you, Smoked Gouda has said you will.”
“Then bring the demon,” Bruce said. “If Smoked Gouda is right, I will get you to Fairy Fairyland afterward.”
Feta appeared to think about that. That had to be hard to do given that his brain was probably made up of mold.
“I swear I will do my best to convince the fairy prince to take you,” Bruce added.
