Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale (11 page)

His acrid breath, reeking of stale beer and cigarettes, hit as hard as his words. I clutched at the shower curtain, desperate to cover myself. He laughed.

“Get your clothes on,” he said. “Come watch the show, and then we’ll talk.”

I had no intention of going along with him, but also no idea how to get out of this creepy-ass bar. Who was this decrepit old guy, and how did he know me? He called me “Roller Deb.” Did he know the Coach? And what sort of purpose did he have in mind for me, that I would “do quite nicely”?

I shuddered, and he left the bathroom, laughing.

Angie was back. “Don’t be scared of Jag,” she said. “He’s weird, but he’s okay, and he’ll look out for you.”

Her eyes were bloodshot, and there were stitches along the hairline of her stringy blonde hair. My eyes flicked quickly to the crook of her arm—sure, enough, needle tracks. They flickered and shone like dollar-store rhinestones before disappearing. Same thing with her hair, her eyes, the stitches. Dirty beautiful.

“I’m not so sure I want to be taken care of by the likes of … Jag, was it?”

“McJagger,” she said.

“Mick Jagger? Same as the guy from the Rolling Stones?”

She laughed. “Sorta. Spelled different, but, yeah. We say it the same.”

I was finished dressing, and sloshing around in my soaked tennis shoes. My backpack was still in the corner. I knew I would make a quicker getaway without toting the skates along, but there was no way I was leaving them behind.

“Tell the truth, Angie. What’s he want with me?”

She shrugged. “Hard to say for sure, but he probably wants you to skate. Rumor has it you’re pretty good, and with your blood, I’m sure you’ll be able to keep up with the full fae, with a little training. Don’t get your hopes up or anything,” she said, pushing the bathroom door open and leading me by the shirttail to an open seat closer to the stage.

Her words were mumbo-jumbo. Made no sense at all.

“My blood? The full what?”

She gestured at an empty table, the only one in the bar, right beside the stage. I was mere feet away from McJagger, his black aura snaking toward me through the air. It smelled sour, like mold on an orange peel.

The singer gestured and suddenly the band was blaring again. It took me a few seconds to recognize the tune—Rob Zombie’s “Dragula.” It should have been creepy, but for some reason, the singer made it seem perfectly safe. While “Jag” and the rest of the band seemed to be completely engrossed in their own personal darkness, the singer actually sort of glowed, for lack of a better word.

He leaned my way during the bridge, slinging the microphone far away from his body in a typical “rock star” move, and we made eye contact for one brief second. I couldn’t help but gasp. He smelled like yellow daffodils, sunbeams, clean fresh linens—I choked, and saw Jag smirk.

There was only going to be one way out of the Fog for me—don’t ask me how I knew it, but in that breath of fresh air between the third verse and the chorus, I knew I would follow Mr. Sunshine through hell or high water—and definitely out of this place, if he would help me.

The song wound down, and he made a quick jerk of his head toward a door at the side of the stage. The band got up and the piped-in opening stanza of Metallica’s “Enter Sandman” boomed from the corner jukebox. I leapt from my chair—this was it, I was sure. We were going to make a break for it.

A hot hand closed down on my shoulder, pushing me back into my seat.

Moe’s scraggly beard brushed my cheek. “Not so fast, Harlow,” he said in a whisper. I pulled away from him, and followed his gaze. He may have been holding me down, but he was staring straight at the dreadlocked singer.

“Harlow?” I said.

“Don’t say his name!” McJagger yelled. He jumped across the stage equipment, knocking a rickety front-row table over, spilling drinks across the laps of the blondes that sat at his feet. Both his tiny black arms reached for me.

Seriously, the man was head-to-toe in leather. At that age?

“Harlow?!” I yelled again.

The golden singer smiled at me, his eyes goading me on.
Say it again,
I could practically hear him thinking.

Moe’s hand closed over my mouth, smelling of beer and motor oil. I tried to scream through it, but my muffled cries were worthless.

McJagger shouted “Gag her! Damn it, anyway!”

Angie lazily produced a dirty bandana, which Jag took from her with a scowl. Her eyes were apologetic, but she said nothing to me. Just a pout.

“Put the damned thing on her, Moe,” he said. “And you’re going to get it for telling her his name.”

Moe’s hands seemed to drop in slow motion. With every ounce of will, I screamed, “Harlow, Harlow, Harlow, Harlow!”

A great whoosh of wind and sunlight, and the singer and I were traveling sideways through the patio exit. We were swept away by some invisible force—magic, I guess. We flew, I think, across a crowded patio, overturning plastic baskets of fried frog legs, knocking over beer bottles, tumbling over the edge of a dry-rotted wooden rail, busting it as we went. It all happened so fast.

And then we were falling. This time, I wasn’t dreaming.

Chapter 11.5

Gimme Three Steps

Harlow

I guess she wasn’t as dumb as she looked, because she picked up on my vibe right away. It didn’t hurt that whatever mojo Biggie had laid on me above the clouds seemed to enhance whatever was already between us. It was my turn to owe him one, for sure, no matter how this gamble played out.

Deb held tight to my arm, and although her fingers were tiny, I could feel her strength, like a band of gold melted and poured around my forearm. The girl wasn’t going to let go, and that was a good thing, because we were taking a chance, defying Jag in front of his toadies, those trouble-hungry bikers, and the drug-addled wenches of theirs.

There hadn’t been any formidable fairies in sight, thank the gods. Trolls might be mean, but fairies are just unpredictable, and any fairies working for Jag were not fairies I wanted to know.

I know I don’t get out much, but I have to admit, singing on that stage was fun. Singing was something I did once in a great while, on the sly. I’d sneak into Bloomington and lead a chorus of panhandlers in serenading co-eds every now and then. The street people needed the money and I let them keep it. One time I magicked a car into busting open a parking meter, and you’d think those hobos had won the lottery. But that’s a different story.

Rarely did I have the opportunity to sing with an actual three-piece band. Not since I was a kid, anyway.
Oh, well.
Someday I’d find the old gang and we’d jam again. We weren’t over, just on a very long hiatus.

But back to my story. Deb clung to me, her little fingers like solid bands of gold. I jumped, and we fell through the air into the shallow Wabash. I fumbled for my mojo sack with my free hand, and when we landed with a splash, I was ready with my knife.

She wasn’t going to like it, but I had no choice. She’d get over it, eventually.

I just hoped whatever curse had begun lifting since she’d spoken my name hadn’t been cast by someone who was still alive, because I didn’t want it settling back onto me. Now that the memories were coming back, I knew I had to follow through with saving this girl—or else.

In just a moment, she was going to be my wife.

Chapter Twelve

Baptism

Deb

It seemed like we fell forever, his enormous hand wrapped around my tiny arm, my only connection in the cold fog of the night air. My legs flailed around me, my backpack pulling me down like an anchor. I was going to break my leg, I knew it. What then?

I hit the water, relieved to go completely under, the water absorbing my fall. I didn’t even register how cold it was, at first. A full body shiverquake overtook me before I knew what was going on.

“Get her! Get them!” Men growled and women shrieked.

I was pretty sure they weren’t men, at all, actually. But what could I call them? Goblins? Trolls?

I was sure I could hear Angela and those bathroom boys laughing.

Bodies lurched toward us through the fog.

Harlow took me by the shoulders and looked hard into my eyes. “Do you trust me?” he said.

I didn’t know him, but for some reason, I was sure I wanted to.

“Do you trust me?! Do you?” His hands shook, but he didn’t hurt me. So gentle.

“I do. I trust you,” I said.

There was movement through the fog, bodies sliding through the underbrush on the banks of the Wabash. Limbs and leaves tumbled down into the water, and angry voices got closer. A black aura split the fog several feet above us, and I knew McJagger was looking for us, scanning the fog.

A knife. A dagger? It was silver, and small, shorter than one of Harlow’s fingers. He held it up, straight up, pointed toward the sky.

“I name thee, I claim thee, a price of blood you pay me.”

He shoved his fingers into my mouth, and I pulled my head away.

“Don’t fight, don’t fight, Deb. You trust me, remember. Don’t fight.”

I was scared as hell, but I let him put that knife into my mouth. I felt it stab into my flesh, and I screamed, but I didn’t pull away. Maybe he was going to cut my head off—maybe I’d have been better off to have been raped by Dave in his gruesome Cadillac, or to have gone with McJagger, after all. I didn’t know. Maybe it was a spell, but I felt so at peace with whatever would happen next. Resigned. Let it come.

Movement, getting closer. Splashing, the sounds of mud sucking on boots—and wings. I could see them approaching, behind Harlow. My eyes must have told him what I was feeling. I tried to point, to speak, but it was if I were moving in slow motion.

“This’ll only hurt another second or two, and then they’ll never be able to touch you against your will,” he said. “No one will, as long as I live. Now, hold on.”

He reached hard and fast into my mouth, and my knees went out from under me, the pain was so intense. I felt a jerk, and a pop, and then blood was streaming out down my face. Again, on the other side of my jaw, then it was over.

He turned to face the throng. “The price!” he said. “It is done!”

McJagger hurled insults through the fog, and a ball of light spread outward from his shadowy presence, clearing the air and erasing the fog between him and us. He looked down at us, his face reddening, his glower now darker than the surrounding night.

“Out! Out!” he screamed. He pointed at Harlow, and hitched his thumb over his shoulder.

Harlow opened a pouch around his neck, now in no hurry at all, and put my teeth inside. Wisdom teeth, I think—hadn’t even cut through my gums yet. Might as well have pulled all my teeth out, for as much blood was gushing.

He knelt in the shallow river, and took me gently by the hand. “Join me, Deb.”

I knelt before him, the cold water soaking me to my waist.

“Hard part’s over,” he said. He smiled, then whispered, “I know this is weird.” His tusks showed, hard. He looked a little like the Coach when he did that, though, and I reminded myself I could never be scared of The Coach. Harlow didn’t scare me. In that moment, I thought that he never could.

He put his arms around me, and pushed me backward into the water. I held on to his neck, instinctively, my fingers tangling in his blond dreadlocks.

“Three dunks,” he said. “Then we’re outta here.”

There was still screaming, shouting, even some laughter, but no one came any closer. We were encapsulated in this ritual, safe in our bubble inside the fog. To me there was only Harlow, and his golden light, warming me against the water, cold and constant, washing over me. Once. Twice. A third time. Enough.

He pulled me to my feet, rolled something between his hands and tossed it into the air, then the world around us shimmered, blurred, and was gone. We were moving, through fog and into the night—moving without walking, as the landscape melted around us like a sand painting caught in a breeze.

I couldn’t stay upright, and Harlow caught me. The blackness overtook me again, but this time it was the golden sunshine of Harlow’s face that I saw as I drifted into the ether, into the waiting virtue of night.