I was home. I’d gone to Fairyland, fought knights and goblins, battled a dragon, and danced in front of the Winter Queen. I’d survived a psychotic dungeon, battled zombies (okay, that one didn’t require a trip to another dimension), and beaten a crazed trickster faerie. And we’d rescued my sister in the process.
That thought spurred me to move, and I got up and walked out into the hall. I heard voices coming from my living room, and even better, I smelled bacon. I walked down the hall to see Mama, Skeeter, Joe, and Amy all sitting at my kitchen table, plates of food piled high in front of them.
“I told you bacon would get him moving. I’ve never known Bubba to miss fried pork product,” Skeeter said, gesturing with his knife. His arm was out of the sling, so I reckoned I wasn’t the only one who got some magic healing.
“Welcome back to the land of the living,” Joe mumbled around a mouthful of eggs.
I didn’t get a chance to answer because my arms were full of a blond woman who took four running steps and launched herself into my arms. Amy wrapped her arms around my neck, her legs around my waist, and her lips around mine. She laid a kiss on me that would have woken me up even if I had died in the Fairyland castle. I staggered back a step, then caught my balance and returned her kiss with a fervor that I didn’t know I had in me.
We made out for a long second, then I heard someone clear their throat behind Amy. I pulled away and looked over my fiancée’s shoulder at Mama, who stood at the table smiling. “Good morning, dear. Would you like some breakfast?”
That almost broke me, right there. Just the words and the tone, so normal, like nothing had ever happened, brought me back to Sunday mornings at our house growing up when Mama would lay out a spread of bacon, eggs, grits, and cathead biscuits with honey and sugar. Me and Jason would eat ourselves stupid and then try to sit still through Sunday School with all the sugar from the biscuits running through us. Jason usually managed better than me. A tear welled up in the corner of my eye, but I dashed it away and managed to mumble a “yes, ma’am” without completely losing it.
Then I saw Nitalia, sitting at the table looking up at me from under a waterfall of hair with big green eyes and a nervous expression on her face. “Hello, brother,” she said. “Thank you for—”
That was all she got out before I basically tackled my kid sister. I took two giant steps forward, leaned down, and swept her up into a huge bear hug. After about half a second, I noticed what I’d done and let the chair clatter to the floor. I held on to Nitalia, though, wrapping her in my big arms and crushing her to my chest.
“I bet you’re glad I insisted on giving him a sponge bath now,” Amy said laughing from behind me.
“We all figured that was just so you could fondle your boyfriend,” Skeeter said. The thwack of her slapping him was all the confirmation I needed that we were back in the real world.
After a few seconds, I set Nitalia down and took a step back, keeping my hands on her shoulders. “You look better.”
“Oberon healed me. He was very…contrite when we returned to the Summer Lands.”
I grunted. “He doesn’t strike me as the contrite type.”
Nitalia leaned in and whispered, “I don’t know if you know this, but our mother can be very persuasive.”
“You know I can hear you, right?” Mama said from the stove.
“She used to do that crap to me all the time growing up,” I said.
Nitalia chuckled. “Me too.”
I bent down and straightened her chair, then sat down at the table between Amy and Nitalia. I couldn’t take my eyes off the faerie woman. I had a sister. Hell, I was pretty excited just to have some family again, even if they couldn’t live in my dimension. Maybe we could set up a magic door or something.
Nitalia did look better. The jaundice was gone, and her hair, which hunk lank and greasy when I saw her in Puck’s throne room, was now full, dark and glossy, with some curl to it. She was taller than Mama, but still normal-sized for a full-blooded faerie, so about medium height and slim for a human.
Her eyes had a little bit of a haunted air to them, and she jumped a touch whenever somebody scraped a chair across the floor, or a fork clattered too loud against a plate. I wasn’t surprised. The kind of trauma she went through leaves scars. I would have been more worried if she hadn’t shown some signs of PTSD.
“How long can you stay?” I asked. “Without getting sick, I mean.”
“Not long,” Nitalia said. “Mother knows best the limitations of our travel to this world, but after having been away from the Summer Lands for so long, I will begin to fade again within a few days.”
“I’m surprised you’re able to be here at all, honestly,” I said.
“I have some, how do you say it? Juice, with the Prince Consort of Summer,” Mama said. I looked over at her, and she gave me a grim smile, twirling a paring knife between her fingers. “But we will depart right after breakfast. Nitalia has a life to return to, as do all of you.”
“I just wanted to make sure you were whole before I left,” Nitalia said. “And to thank you. Not many would have done what you did, braving another world for a stranger.”
“You ain’t a stranger, sis,” I said, shoving a piece of bacon in my mouth and moaning a little as the perfectly crisped slice of heaven exploded on my tongue. I swallowed, then washed it down with a sip of OJ. “You’re family. Family takes care of one another.” I looked around the table at the nodding heads and knew I was speaking truth.
Nitalia stood up, threw her arms around me, and hugged me tight. “Thank you, brother. I will miss you.”
“But not just yet, and not for long,” Mama said. “After all, we have a wedding to plan.” She smiled at Amy, and the womenfolk’s faces lit up. It looked like I was in trouble. I mean, with literal faerie princesses planning the wedding, I was gonna have to wear something embarrassing, I could feel it. I just hoped I could avoid tights.
I decided to change the subject before somebody started talking about flower arrangements. “How long have I been out?”
“Not long,” Skeeter said. “Just one day and one night.”
Amy looked over at me. “You teleported us back to Titania’s throne room, and Oberon’s people leapt to action. Your mother healed you, and his court healers fixed Skeeter’s arm. Then they sent us home. You slept through all the boring bits, but you’re an honorary Knight of the Summer Court now.”
“Couldn’t have done it without you guys. Especially you, Skeet. Nice job smuggling the pistol in,” I said.
“Nobody ever checks the sling,” he replied. “Faeries aren’t any smarter than humans when it comes to that.”
“And good job not trying to shoot Puck yourself. I was too hurt to live through a bullet wound, too,” I said, grinning at my buddy. There was very good reason Skeeter was always on the shotgun.
“As soon as Amy cut me down, I gave her the gun.”
“And she saved my ass,” I said. “Thanks, babe.” I gave her a quick kiss on the lips, then turned back to Mama. “So that’s it? We’re home, we’re healed, and you and Nitalia have to go back to Fairyland, just like nothing ever happened. Sounds like a pretty good deal.”
“Well…” Joe said.
I looked around the table at my family and friends. “What’s the deal? Did somebody die while we were gone? How long were we gone, anyway? Last time I went into Fairyland, two days over here was a couple weeks there.”
“You’re right,” Mama said. “Time moves differently in Faerie than here in your realm, like I mentioned. What I didn’t tell you was that crossing from Winter to Summer, and into Shadow and back…that complicates things.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The boundaries between the Courts are more than just within Faerie. They connect to your world in different places.” Mama wasn’t meeting my gaze. I felt like there was something she wasn’t telling me.
“So what?” I asked. “Who cares where the Courts touch our world, as long a
s we got home okay.”
“They touch in different places in space…and time.”
“Oh,” I said. Then I shook my head. “I still don’t get it.”
“Moving between the Courts changed the way time moved between the Realms. Had your travels only occurred in Winter or Summer, then you would have been gone mere days in your world. But when you stepped into Shadow, something changed.”
“Okay, Mama,” I said, putting another piece of bacon in my mouth and talking as I chewed. It was rude, I know, but bacon excuses a lot of sins. “Cut the crap. How long were we over there?” I looked around the table. Nobody would look at me. They all apparently knew the deal already. I guess that’s another benefit of not almost dying and needing a shitload of healing magic and sleep.
“Every day you were in Faerie accounted for close to four days here in your world,” Mama said.
I sat back in my chair and laid the strip of bacon on my plate. I looked around, doing some rough math in my head. “We were in Faerie for what, four or five months?”
Joe nodded. “Something like that.”
“So…how long were we gone on this side of the magic curtain?” I looked to Amy.
“We were gone for a year and a half, Bubba. We were missing for eighteen months.” She looked like there was more, so I motioned for her to go on. She didn’t speak.
“Okay, we were gone for a long time…wait, were we declared dead? Did we all just fake our own deaths?” I asked.
“No,” Skeeter said. “That takes a lot longer. And since you and I own our places, and folks around here know what we do…well, my dad paid my light bill, and you’ve got a generator. That’s what we’re working off of right now, so that’s good.”
“But you…” I turned to Amy.
“Yeah, I kinda don’t have an apartment anymore. Or a car. Or a job, for that matter.”
“Holy shit,” I said. “They fired you? Well, I guess they thought you were dead. Damn. Getting that straight is gonna suck.”
“That’s…not all,” Joe said. “Amy isn’t the only one with bad news on the employment front.”
I stared at him. “Really? I thought being a priest was like a lifetime appointment.”
“It is,” he said, holding up his hands. “I’ve spoken with the Cardinal and explained what happened. He understands, and I’ll likely be reinstated once they are done with all their investigations.”
“Okay, then that’s good. It’s gonna suck, but I’ve got a little money put back, and once the feds and the Church get all their ducks in a row, you guys will be back square in no time. Right?”
“Well…kinda,” Amy said. “We’re not the ones with the problem.”
“What do you mean?” I asked.
“The Church wasn’t happy to find out that their Hunter for the region was in Faerie for a year and a half, but they were a lot less happy when they learned that he’s also part faerie with blood ties to two different Courts and their rulers,” Joe said.
“What are you saying, Joe?” I asked, leaning forward with my elbows on the table.
He wouldn’t meet my eyes. “Bubba, effective immediately, you are no longer the Regional Monster Hunter of the Holy Roman Church. It is the opinion of the Church that your faerie blood makes you untrustworthy by your very nature. I’m sorry, Bubba. You’re fired.”
“Holy shit,” I said. I turned to Amy. “Well, I hope DEMON is hiring because I’m gonna need to get my beer money from somewhere.”
She wouldn’t look at me. “What?” I asked.
“The government agrees. They will not allow a nonhuman to be a part of the Department under any circumstances, nor will they allow any agent to use a nonhuman as a consultant on anything more than an extremely limited basis.”
“Well, that sucks,” I said, looking around the table. “What the hell am I supposed to do for money?”
“We,” Amy said, her voice small.
“Huh?” I turned back to her.
“What are we going to do for money. That’s what you meant to say. Because they won’t let any of their agents consort with a nonhuman, either.”
“Wait, what?” I started to stand up, but Amy put a hand on my shoulder. “You’re saying that they won’t let you be with me and be an agent?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. I turned over my badge and gun yesterday. As of this morning, we’re unemployed.”
“We all are,” Joe said. “I told the Cardinal that if the Church didn’t want my best friend because of some racist bullshit, then the Church could kiss my ass.” I hadn’t noticed that he wasn’t wearing the collar, but I certainly noticed the less than priestly language. I guess he really had quit.
“So…welcome home, now you’re fired?” I said, looking around.
“Pretty much,” Skeeter said. “I guess the only real question now is…now what?”
I looked around the table, at my family by birth and by choice, and I felt a smile creep across my face. “I don’t know, Skeet. But I know this much. It don’t matter what they throw at us. With y’all by my side, I can handle it. Now gimme the rest of that bacon.”
We finished breakfast, with everybody throwing out ideas for how to earn a living in our new reality, and I didn’t care if I never found another job, as long as I could live in a cardboard box next to these people. I was halfway through the breakfast dishes when there was a knock at the door.
I looked at Skeeter, but he looked as confused as I did. “I ain’t expecting nobody.”
I walked unarmed to the door. Not something I usually do, but I’d just survived a lot of shit and was feeling pretty damn invincible. All that went away when I saw the giant hairy man standing on my porch.
“What’s up, Barry?” I asked the sasquatch. I hadn’t seen Barry since him and the remnants of his tribe helped me stop my brother from taking over the world a couple years ago.
“I need your help, Bubba. The Wild Hunt has come to our forest, and they are hunting sasquatch.”
Well, shit. That had to be like the world’s shortest retirement.
THE END - FOR NOW
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you like.
If you’d like to hear more about or from the author, please join my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/fV4In.
You can get some free short stories just for signing up, and whenever a book gets 50 reviews, the author gets a unicorn. I need another unicorn. The ones I have are getting lonely. So please leave a review and get me another unicorn!
Acknowledgments
Thanks as always to Melissa Gilbert for all her help, and for trying in vain to teach me where the commas go.
Thanks to Natania Barron for her amazing cover designs.
As always, thank all of you for reading, and thanks especially for taking this journey to Fairyland with me and Bubba!
The following people help me bring this work to you by their Patreon-age. You can join them at Patreon.com/johnhartness.
Sean Fitzpatrick
Amanda Justice
Noah Sturdevant
Mark Ferber
Andy Bartalone
Nick Esslinger
Sharon Moore
Wendy Taylor
Sheelagh Semper
Charlotte Henley Babb
Andreas Brücher
Sheryl R. Hayes
Amaranth Dawe
Butch Howard
Lawrence Nash
Delia Houghland
Douglas Park Jr.
Travis & Casey Schilling
Michelle E. Botwinick
Carol Baker
Leonard Rosenthol
Lisa Hodges
Patrick Dugan
Mark Wilson
Darrell Grizzle
Kenneth Dick
Liberty Becker
Kimberly Richardson
Aloof Fox
Arthur Reisfeld
Kristie McKinely
Melissa Cole
Le
ia Powell
Jeremy Snyder
Candice Carpenter
Theresa Glover
Salem Macknee
Jared Pierce
Vikki Perry
Valentine Wolfe
Noella Handley
Don Lynch
Jeremy Wilhoit
D.R. Perry
Andrea Judy
Anthony D. Hudson
John A. McColley
Dennis Bolton
Shiloh Walker/J.C. Daniels
Andrew Torn
Sue Lambert
Emilia Agrafojo
Tracy Syrstad
Samantha Dunaway Bryant
Steven R. Yanacsek
Scott Furman
Rebecca Ledford
Ray Spitz
Lars Klander
Stay In Touch!
If you enjoyed this book, please leave a review on Amazon, Goodreads, or wherever you like.
If you’d like to hear more about or from the author, please join my mailing list at http://eepurl.com/fV4In.
You can get some free short stories just for signing up, and whenever a book gets 50 reviews, the author gets a unicorn. I need another unicorn. The ones I have are getting lonely. So please leave a review and get me another unicorn!
About the Author
John G. Hartness is a teller of tales, a righter of wrong, defender of ladies’ virtues, and some people call him Maurice, for he speaks of the pompatus of love. He is also the best-selling author of EPIC-Award-winning series The Black Knight Chronicles from Bell Bridge Books, a comedic urban fantasy series that answers the eternal question “Why aren’t there more fat vampires?” In July of 2016. John was honored with the Manly Wade Wellman Award by the NC Speculative Fiction Foundation for Best Novel by a North Carolina writer in 2015 for the first Quincy Harker novella, Raising Hell.
In 2016, John teamed up with a pair of other publishing industry ne’er-do-wells and founded Falstaff Books, a publishing company dedicated to pushing the boundaries of literature and entertainment.
In his copious free time John enjoys long walks on the beach, rescuing kittens from trees and getting caught in the rain. An avid Magic: the Gathering player, John is strong in his nerd-fu and has sometimes been referred to as “the Kevin Smith of Charlotte, NC.” And not just for his girth.
Monsters, Magic, & Mayhem: Bubba the Monster Hunter Season 4 Page 38
