The Hunt for Snow (12 page)

I nodded. “We sure do. Sort of,” I added dryly.

Small business for the Enchanted Forest was much different than business on Earth, so I wasn’t sure how much I could use at home. Not that I should have been thinking about that so much, especially since I was going to be back in the castle soon. We left that class and slipped into an unoccupied room so we could talk to Red.

“Is Rumpelstiltskin here?” I asked her.

Her mouth dropped open. “Errr…what could you possibly want with that guy?”

We told her our plan to curse Naomi. Red seemed to be on the same track as Cyndi and suggested we just kill her. Honestly, I was beginning to think it’d be easier. When I told her I didn’t want to start my reign off with violence, a thoughtful look appeared on her face.

“You’re right,” she said after a moment of silence. “The villagers have seen their fair share of death under Naomi’s rule.” She shook her head. “Rumpel isn’t here, Snow. I’m sorry. He rarely ventures away from his hollow anymore. He is feared and reviled. Every deal he does winds up worse for the person who struck it than the target.”

“That just means we have to be smarter than him,” Belle spoke up. “And…we make sure he doesn’t cheat.”

Cyndi gave her a dubious look. “Rumpel always cheats. Kings and queens have been duped. What kind of chance do we have?”

“A big one,” Belle said. She pointed to me. “Snow has been on the run for ten years. Successfully, I might add. I’m running a technology business, and you run a wish firm. We are intelligent, capable women. Everyone else has been too cocky. We aren’t cocky. We’re desperate.”

I wasn’t quite sure what desperation had to do with winning, but Belle was going somewhere with this. I raised an eyebrow at her and gestured for her to go on.

“When you’re desperate, you’re willing to give up more. We don’t have much. But we do have Naomi.”

“Uh, but we
don’t
have Naomi. That’s the whole point,” I said.

Red grinned then and slapped Belle on the shoulder. “Freaking genius!” she shouted.

My hamster must have fallen off its wheel because I had no idea what she was talking about.

Belle gave me a look of barely concealed irritation. “Listen. Naomi has been a scourge in the Enchanted Forest. She rules through tyranny and terror. Who else lives in the Enchanted Forest?”

She gave me the look an encouraging preschool teacher would make to one of her pupils. “Um,” I said. “People?”

“Good God, woman! Rumpel lives in the forest. She’s making his life a living hell, too. This could work out in our favor! If we can get her out of his hair he might be willing to make a deal.”

“If that’s the case, then why hasn’t he already tried?” Naomi was powerful, but I didn’t doubt Rumpel either matched or exceeded her powers.

“He’s tried many times.” The friendly voice intruded into our private conversation. I jerked and reached for my knife until I realized it was Giles.

“How did you find us?” Hopefully Giles didn’t plant some freaky tracking device on us, too.

“I’ve been around you since you were a lass in diapers, Snow. I know your habits more than all others.”

Scary
, I thought. “How do we know we can trust you?”

He smiled, a soft sad smile. “Naomi does not have me bespelled, Snow. She knows I’d rather impale myself on my knife than allow her power over me.”

“So why doesn’t she just kill you then?” I asked, and winced when I heard my harsh tone.

“Because I am an asset. And I am the only one within her court who won’t openly try to kill her.” He spread his hands open and shrugged. “I am an old man. But I am not above subterfuge. Your plan is a good one. Rumpel will listen to you. He’s tried many times over the years to take Naomi out of power. Obviously, he’s never succeeded.”

I felt my brow wrinkle. “Why not? He’s as powerful as her, if not more so.”

“That he is,” Giles said. “But he always approaches her from the front. He’s never tried to be deceptive or sneaky. When he tries it, she’s always aware. He’s an honorable killer, if you’d believe that. Plus, no one in the town trusts him so he can’t very well ask them for help.”

Belle’s plan was beginning to make sense. We’d be doing something Rumpel wanted all along, but had never been able to do. What worried me is what he would want in return. Knocking her out of power wouldn’t be enough for him. There would always be a catch, always something to make the deal deadly.

“So how do we get back to the Enchanted Forest? Maleficent needs recovery time before she can reopen the portal.” My mind spun with thoughts about the curse and what we could do to keep Naomi under control.

Beside me Red stiffened and her nostrils flared out. “Did you feel that?”

Belle and I stared at each other, both wary. “No,” I said. “Feel what?”

“Revenge.” Naomi walked in, all legs and smiles, her arms raised at her sides and the deep blood-red of her magic pouring out. The hotel shook under our feet, knocking us all off balance.

I looked over at Giles, where the telltale hint of Naomi’s magic shot through his deep blue pupils. My heart sank. One of my closest friends when I was a child, one of my closest allies, gone. Just like that. I closed my eyes briefly and when I opened them again, Giles had disappeared, leaving something in my back pocket. Cursing my stupidity, but not wanting to tip off Naomi, I tucked what felt like a Ziploc bag down further into the pocket of my leggings. I’d examine that later. I just hoped it wasn’t explosive.

“If it’s me you want, just take me. You don’t have to kill everyone in this hotel.” The building still quaked beneath my feet, but years of yoga had given me pretty good balance. I stayed upright as best as I could, while my friends lay sprawled in various states on the ground.

“Who said anything about killing?” Naomi’s magic poured forth from her hands, swirling through the room. I didn’t know what she was doing, but whatever it was didn’t bode well for anyone.

“Then what are you doing?” I moved my fingers to my waistband.

“Ah ah ah,” Naomi said and with one flick of her wrist, my arm was flung away and hung useless by my side. She’d dislocated my shoulder.

I shrieked in pain, and cradled my arm against my stomach. Belle stepped up then, flashes of yellow crackling around her.

“Whatever it is that you’re doing, Naomi, stop. Why can’t you just admit that you’ve lost?”

Her tinkling laughter rang out through the room. “Lost? Whatever do you mean? I’ve won.” She leaned forward and bared her teeth at Belle. “Little bookworm, I suggest you drop those currents you’re tangling with, otherwise I’m going to add you to my enemy list.”

“Too late,” Belle said and pretty much released the kraken on Naomi’s ass. All the lights blew out in the building, or at least as far as I could tell, because we were plunged into pitch-darkness. Naomi’s screams rang out through the room, but it was followed by her laughter.

Debris rained down above us, and I hesitated to move because I couldn’t see a damned thing, except for Belle lighting up like a glowworm, her face concentrated and angry. The hotel shifted and lurched around us, and the screams of the hotel guests rang throughout my ears.

“You’re too late, bookworm!” Naomi’s voice rasped out, her breathing heavy and labored. The building stopped moving, the lights flickered above us a couple of times and silence rang out all around us.

Naomi’s mocking laughter faded away as she left us. I felt something soft beside me move and moan softly. I felt my way around, whispering, “So sorry. Pretend we’re dating.”

The pained giggle let me know it was Cyndi. “Are you okay?” I asked, praying against the odds she was.

“Yes, but someone is sitting on me.”

“Shit,” Red muttered. “I thought that was too soft to be the floor.” The sounds of shifting and groans met our ears. Belle sat down beside me, her skin still sparking with the earlier magic exertion.

“What the hell did you do to her?” I asked.

“Not enough,” Belle said grimly. “Give me a minute and I’ll get the lights back on.”

“Take your time,” I said. I wasn’t sure I wanted to see the damage. Or what Naomi had done. I felt my way over and gripped Belle’s hand with my good one. She squeezed it, her hand lean and strong. I knew Belle was powerful. I had no idea she could blow out the power in a fifty story hotel. Perhaps I should take more care when teasing her.

“Don’t say a word,” she said.

I snorted. “Wouldn’t dream of it, sparky.”

I heard her then huff with laughter. We sat there for a few more minutes waiting for Belle to get some of her juice back. Even though I had a personal nightlight sitting right beside me, the darkness was still overwhelming. “I need you to put my shoulder back into the socket,” I said.

“Oh, Snow, you always say the most romantic things.” Belle motioned for me to get in front of her. She stood behind me, and I gritted my teeth waiting for the inevitable pain. She’d had to do this more than once since she came to live with me. I’d come home black and blue after a training session, and instead of going to the hospital, I’d look at Belle who’d sigh, mutter some curse words, and eventually set me to rights again. This was now old hat to her, but I feared if I didn’t get my shoulder looked at soon I’d end up with arthritis in it before I was forty. With no warning, Belle forced my shoulder back into the socket, and I managed only a short scream of pain this time. Progress.

After a few minutes, I was feeling more like myself again. I could barely make out Cyndi and Red huddled next to us just a few feet over. The air was fast becoming oppressive with the weight of fear and the heat of hundreds of bodies suddenly exposed to terror and no air conditioning.

How many were dead? Dying? Maimed? All? Maybe none? So many questions I didn’t have an answer for, and Naomi had so many excuses for making us suffer. All for power. For royalty. She had major mommy issues.

Belle stood beside me, took one long deep breath and sent out tendrils of bright yellow magic up through the ceiling. I watched in awe as the lights slowly started to spark back to life. They weren’t as bright as they normally were, but at least we could see enough to get by. After a moment, Belle released her magic and turned to us with a grim look on her face.

“We are no longer on Earth.”

“Uhh, that was sort of creepy, Belle. Could you maybe say that during scary story time at camp instead of right now when we’re all scared
shitless
?” She didn’t crack a smile, and my stomach plummeted down to my toes. “How do you know?” I asked shortly.

“The shortage of electricity. I’m pulling straight from the generator power. And it won’t last for long. Earth is full of electrical power. Power lines, underground cables, power plants, the place is full of areas rich in electricity. Wherever we are now is…different.” She paused. “The electricity running through the earth now is natural.”

Cyndi’s voice chimed in for the first time. “Natural?” Her voice wobbled.

Belle nodded.

Red’s voice drifted over to us from one of the outside windows. She’d opened up the locked blinds. “That’s because we’re back in the Enchanted Forest.”

“We’re…what?” I asked and hurried over to the window. I peeked out the window and saw that we were smack dab in the middle of the forest. Naomi had literally pulled our hotel up by the roots, somehow opened up a portal and dropped the damned thing back into fairytale land.

“Honey, we’re home!” Grumpy’s voice came from the other side of the room. If he was here to fight, I swear I was going to shoot him in the face.

I turned to him, allowing the blinds to draw shut behind me. “Well, you should be pleased.”

He pulled the hat off his head in a sheepish gesture. “Snow, I didn’t mean to treat you so bad when I saw you. It’s just I—” He stopped and hung his head. “Look, let’s avoid the mushy scene and figure out why the hell we’re back here and what we’re going to do about it, okay?”

I’d like to know that myself. I nodded at Grumpy. “Deal. Let’s go see what the hell is going on.” We all walked silently out of the room, the lights flickering in and out and giving the hotel a creepy horror movie film vibe. Shell-shocked people lined the hallways, their business suits askew. One man was walking in the hallway straight for us.

Robin.

He looked way too happy for everything that had just happened over the last several minutes. “Lass!” he shouted as he began jogging over. “Did you see that? Bloody amazing!”

I felt, rather than saw, Belle react. A crack of yellow magic rang out and hit Robin in the groin. He fell to his knees, cursing.

“Oh shit.” I choked on laughter. “Belle, he’s going to kill you.”

“Not if I kill him first,” she said. Looks like that short burst of admiration for him had evaporated like water on hot concrete.

We stopped beside Robin who was now laid out flat on his back with his hands cupped over his family jewels. “You’re going to pay for that,” he rasped out.

“Amazing?” she said in disdain. “You think this is
amazing
?” She gestured at the chaos around us. “You’re an idiot, Robin. And a fool!”

“So maybe I chose the wrong word,” he admitted. “No reason to prevent a man from having children in the future!” After a moment or two he sat up, and I helped him stand. He leaned over, his hands on his knees, and stared at my friend. “Do that again and there will be no mercy for you, lass. I’ll flay the skin from your bones and make you watch me do it.”

Something flashed in Belle’s eyes then. Something I was going to try and never ever remember because it looked suspiciously like she was turned on. I mean, Max and I were always trying to kill each other, but he was sort of a bad guy. Good girls like Belle weren’t supposed to like that kind of creepy talk.

“I’ll look forward to you trying,” she said.

So I covered my ears and repeated, “Lalalalala,” until they both stared at me with impatience.

I pulled my hands off my ears and nodded to everyone. “Let’s go see what the hell just happened.”

The elevators were out of service, so we had to take several grueling flights of stairs to get to the bottom. Why in the world would Naomi send us back here? I didn’t dare think she’d done us a favor, so I didn’t think she’d heard us plotting about Rumpel. Although now with Giles compromised, it was a sure bet she’d find out soon. We needed to get to him ASAP before Naomi did.

Once we reached the bottom of the steps we crossed over to the lobby and tried the front doors. Locked.

Weird. I picked up one of the chairs from the front area and lobbed it at the glass window. It bounced off with a resounding
bong
and shattered on its way back to us. I was beginning to think the worst. I picked up another chair and lobbed it at another piece of the glass door.

Same thing.

I walked over to the bar area where there were windows galore and took out my Sig. I turned to everyone behind me. “Duck,” I said, and took up position behind the bar, just in case. I fired a single shot into the glass and the bullet melted into the glass. A red shimmer hit it, but it didn’t shatter.

“Don’t bother.” Maleficent strode into the bar. “We’re trapped.”

“Trapped?” I echoed.

“You ever seen Doctor Who?”

I looked at Robin. “Doctor what?” I asked. I shook my head. “What the hell, Robin? Who is that, and how can a doctor help us right now?”

He shook his head in pity. “A philistine, of course. Someone with your unnatural attachment to weaponry is unlikely to watch the BBC.”

Belle studied Robin like a scientist with a new discovery. “Since when do you watch the BBC?”

Robin studied his nails, but a flush of pleasure was evident on his face. “I have my secrets, too.”

“What does a TV show have to do with our current predicament?” I stared at the bullet locked in the glass like a fossil in amber. It was good we were back home. It was very bad we were locked inside our hotel.

Maleficent glided forward to stare at the bullet. “The Doctor and a hospital of people get dumped on another planet.”

I stared at her. “Et tu, Maleficent? Who
are
you people?”

“She managed to figure out how to stream television into the Enchanted Forest. Since it’s too dangerous to go outside most days, we tend to gather in the pub and watch marathons.” Grumpy winked at me. “True story.”

I shook my head in disbelief. “All right. You win. How’d they get out?”

“They didn’t.” Robin tapped the glass around the bullet, and then scratched at it looking for a weak spot.

“A happy ending then,” I said with exasperation.

“They didn’t get out because they got dumped on another planet, Snow,” Belle said, the words dripping with sarcasm, like
duh
.

“Everyone died?” My voice rose in a high shriek.

“Of course not,” Maleficent chided. “This is The Doctor we’re talking about. He managed to get the hospital back on Earth so everyone could get out.”

“All right, suit up then, Maleficent. How are we getting out of this one?” I looked around the room searching for anything that might be able to break us out of here.

She stood up from her kneeling position. “So far I don’t see any weak spots. We are effectively trapped for the time being until I can figure out the type of magic she used. It’s unfamiliar to me, which is surprising. Naomi doesn’t often stump me.”

“Great,” I muttered and slumped against the edge of the bar.

A sharp gasp of breath jerked my head up. Belle stood at the lobby doors, her face pressed against the glass. “I think we have a lot more to worry about than being trapped in here, guys. Naomi didn’t dump us exactly in the Enchanted Forest.”

Robin moved beside Belle, his lean height a sharp contrast to Belle’s petite figure. “Bloody hell,” he murmured. “She dumped us in troll territory.”

“If we can’t get out, can anyone get in?” I jogged up to look out the window and wished I hadn’t. Several trolls were headed straight for us, their clubs slung over their massive backs. Trees swayed in the wake of their massive height, and the ground rumbled beneath them. The bar glasses began to clink together, louder with every step. “For crying out loud,” I muttered. “Draw your weapons, we’re about to find out.”

By then, hundreds of people had filed into the bar. Everyone looked a little shell-shocked, but so far I hadn’t seen a single civilian. I’m not sure what Naomi had done with the other guests, but I was erring on the hopeful side. A quick memory spell and she could have sent everyone home with no worries. On the other hand, if she’d done something else with them, we would all probably be in a world of hurt once we got back to Earth. I’m sure the police wouldn’t take too kindly to a hotel disappearing into thin air and the absence of at least a few hundred citizens. I wasn’t going to think about it right now.

I’d never fought a troll before—never had to, actually. What I did know about them was minimal. Magic wasn’t all that effective on them. Neither was fire or lightning. Ice slowed them down a little bit, but ice melted. Brute force was going to be necessary. We had about two hundred villagers on our side—almost every single one inexperienced. Five trolls could decimate a village and every single person in it.

“All right, everyone grab something you can defend yourself with. Anything. Chairs, paintings, knives, someone you hate.
Kidding
. If they’re able to get in here, it wouldn’t necessary be a bad thing. That means we can get out.” The villagers looked scared but determined. In a mad scramble, people were picking up anything in the vicinity, and some were pulling scabbards out and drawing their swords. Okay, then. There were lots more armed people than I expected. It gave me a warm fuzzy feeling deep inside.

I drew both my Sig and my backup gun and watched the inevitable. When the trolls reached us, they didn’t waste any time. Blows rained down on the building, making me cringe, but also making me hopeful they’d be able to break us out of here. “Hold,” I shouted to everyone.

Maleficent came up beside me. “As long as they keep trying to get in here, I can use my magic to weaken the threads of Naomi’s. I’m still not sure what she did, but even the strongest sorcery can’t withstand an onslaught of brute force like that.” She studied the trolls outside. “It depends on how bad they want us. If they keep it up, I might be able to break the bindings. So,” she grinned brilliantly at me. “Do you what you do best. Antagonize them.”

“Hey!” I frowned at her. If she could weaken the magic, we could bust out of here, get Rumpel and get the hell out of Dodge. “Fine,” I grumbled. I started screaming as loudly as I could and banging against the glass. Noticing the curious stares, I motioned everyone over.

“Find a window, a door, anything where they can see or hear you. Do everything you can to piss them off. Insult their mothers, their fathers, their offspring, anything.” I picked up one of the broken chairs and started swing the leg against the glass. One troll leaned down, its eyeball as big as my entire head. It roared in outrage when I gave it a savage grin and the middle finger.

I could hear Robin, Belle and Cyndi screaming obscenities at the top of their lungs. From my peripheral vision, I could see the familiar purple of Maleficent’s magic pouring through the room. “Keep it up,” she said in a strained voice.

The building shook, glasses flew off their display cases, and bottle after bottle shattered. Outside, the trolls continued to bang against the walls of the hotel, trying their damnedest to get in. If they managed to make it in before we got out, we were completely screwed.

“Maleficent,” I said in a wavering voice.

“What?” she managed to say with great effort.

“What’s the plan once the binding breaks?”

“Why does there always have to be a plan?” she gritted out.

“Umm,” I said. “So we don’t die?”

“How about you just run like hell?”

“Sold,” I said.

The first inkling that the binding was weakening was the bullet I’d left in the glass. It began to move through it like slow motion television. Naomi’s magic wavered, and the glass began to crack, its fissures like a spider’s web spreading through the glass.

“Get back,” I choked out, but it wasn’t loud enough. “
Get back
!” I screamed again. People bailed in all directions as the bullet finished the job it had initially started. Glass shattered, deadly bits of shrapnel flew through the air like an ice storm. Screams of pain rang out, but I was only focused on one thing—trolls.

So far they hadn’t noticed the breach. Now, how the hell were we going to get everyone out and avoid the notice of the big beasts currently beating the hell out of the building in their valiant effort to eat us? I beat the rest of the glass out of the door with a chair leg. Lucky for us, trolls weren’t too smart, and they were incredibly loud, so I could speak without being overheard. I shouted for everyone to gather around.

“I know this isn’t how we wanted to get back home, but it is what it is and now we have to figure out how to get out of this alive. And my plan, what little there is of one, is to just get us all out of here with minimal casualties.”

At the murmurs of my audience, I realized the word
casualty
might not have been the best choice of word, but it was true. I hesitated. “Look, have faith in me. We will get out of here. Now, I want you to keep your weapons with you at all times, and once you get outside you need to scatter in all directions. Going in one direction is a sure-fire way to get you killed. Scatter like ants. Everyone clear?”

Terrified, dirty faces nodded. “What about you?” Someone spoke up from the back.

“I’m a survivor,” I said. “I’ll be fine. Now go.” I motioned people out one by one, praying the trolls were so intent on the building’s destruction that they wouldn’t notice the tiny delicious humans running around their feet. We were about seventy people down when the blows raining against the building suddenly fell silent.

“Shit,” I muttered. I halted the line filing outside. Maleficent still held firm on the steady stream of magic. “Are there other weak spots in the building?”

She shrugged. “Possibly. I can feel the bindings weakening, but I still have some ways to go.”

“We’ve attracted the notice of the trolls,” I said. “Going out the same way is suicide.”

Maleficent cursed under her breath and closed her eyes for a moment. Sweat broke out on her brow. “The kitchen,” she said. “There’s a spot close to the back where the dry goods are. Go there. Dividing their attention will make it easier to get away.” She gave me a strained look. “Once you have everyone else out, I’m going to have to drop my magic, otherwise I won’t be good for anything else for the rest of the day.”