Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale (19 page)

I hated to send her alone, but she made quick work of it, and it wasn’t long before we’d pulled Dave to the far corner of the market—almost all the way to the Broasted Chicken and Pizza counter at the hidden mouth of the place.

“What do you want me to do with this stuff?” she asked.

“Watch and learn my dear, watch and learn.”

We laid Dave down, his face now resting on the smooth concrete floor of the English side of the flea market. I knew he was going to be filthy with magic and blood when we awoke, and that was going to anger him at least as much as the fact that I’d taken Deb. There was never a troll more vain than Dave. Only his half-sister April gave him a run for that money, and she was half-fairy, so it was to be expected.

“The bag,” I said.

She tossed it to me like it was a hot potato, and I pulled the drawstring gingerly. Iron everywhere. I could hear my skin burning, so I worked fast.

It was like handling chemicals, and I knew the burn was going to take some time to overcome, but I couldn’t have Dave following us home. Deliberately, I poured a ring of iron fillings around my cousin.

“Lest no one harm thee,

Lest no one thieve.

Lest no one wake thee,

Lest no one grieve.”

“Derek,” I said. The kid’s eyes flicked my way, then returned to his fallen master. That was probably the most he could manage. “Keep an eye on him, alright?” His eyes flicked again, and the corners of his mouth turned down. “We’ll be back for you.”

“You’re damn right, we’ll be back,” Deb said. She approached Derek, and hugged his body, stiff as a statue. “I’m sorry we have to leave you. I hate this, Derek.”

Then, to me, she asked, “What did you do?” I wanted to tell her, but there wasn’t time.

A buzzing, glowing cloud of pixies rained down. The first wave of attackers was upon us.

Deb batted some away with her injured hand, and I saw one of the tiny buggers crumple, just from contact with the leftover iron residue.

“Someone’s sent the cafe pixies after us—go, go!”

Chapter Twenty-Two

When Tinkerbell Attacks

Deb

Whizzing, past my ears like bullets. What was that?

No time to think—flashing lights—like I’d hit my head and was seeing stars, only these lights were much, much bigger, glowing on and off and shaking golden dust that stung nearly as much as the iron had.

I swatted them away, and one fell to the floor, writhing in agony. I thought of those tiny bones again, in between cobblestones, and instantly I felt sick to my stomach. I wanted to help her, this little pixie.

“No time for hand-clapping, Deb, we’ve got to go! I command you!”

And just like that, there was nothing I could do. I was following him out the door, and I’d have followed him anywhere, willingly. I knew it was magic, and yet I was powerless to fight against it. Deep in my heart, I knew I shouldn’t have been fighting it, anyway. Harlow was the first person I’d met who actually seemed to care about my well-being, outside of Derek, and frankly, until this trip to the market, I’d only thought he wanted into my pants because it was the closest pair in sight.

We were all the way to the wood, and Harlow was pushing me down into a drain pipe before I caught enough breath to ask again.

“What did you mean, when you said you’ll ‘free me’? Are you going to give me any answers or not? God!” I was so angry, I wanted to throw something, but there was nothing to throw. I wanted to drive my fists into him, but his body was so solid, I knew I’d never make an impression—even if I swelled in size again, somehow I felt certain Harlow would match me blow-for-blow.

“Just go through the portal, Deb. We need to get back to the mansa before Dave comes for you.”

“I thought you said he couldn’t follow us.”

“Oh, he can follow us, just fine, if we keep hanging around here leaving a scent trail. He can’t come into the mansa when he gets there, but if you don’t get moving, he’s definitely going to tail us. I don’t know about you, but I don’t particularly want Dave hanging out outside my place.”

I looked over my shoulder, back toward the flea market building. Regular people were walking around the parking lot, but there weren’t any hellhounds or fairies bounding across the field toward us, or anything. Just a guy with a camouflage prosthetic leg, pushing a collapsible shopping cart, and lady with a toy poodle in a baby stroller. Nothing unusual.

“I’m not going anywhere until I get some answers,” I said. I knew it was risky, but I didn’t care. “I’m sick of being treated like a mushroom. You feed me shit and keep me in the dark, and I’m supposed to be happy about it? I saved your neck in there, Harlow. Start talking, or I’m going right back into the market and joining that roller derby team. I haven’t skated for a couple of days, anyway. I’m dying to get rolling.”

He threw his hands into the air. “Fine. I give up. What do you want to know? I’m an open book.”

“Why didn’t you just tell me everything from the beginning?”

“What do you mean ‘tell you everything’? Isn’t it enough I’m trying to protect you?”

“From what?”

“From this world—
our
world. From Dave, from Jag, for Pete’s sake. You wanna end up like Gennifer?”

“What world? The … fairy world?” I felt stupid saying it. “And Gennifer’s not going to ‘end up’ anything! You’re supposed to help me save her!”

“At this point, Deb, she’s going to have to get in line. You’re a loose cannon, you’ve added that miserable slave kid to the list—” He looked like he wanted to explode, his lower tusks jabbing into the air with every angry word.

He took a deep breath, closing his eyes for just a second, and began again. “Yes. The fae realm. The world of trolls and goblins and gremlins and worse. But—I don’t know what I was thinking. You’re not like your sister. There won’t be any going back for you. You’re changing—and I should have known. Should have known you would!”

“Going back to what? Going back to Cali?”

He laughed. “I don’t think so, Deb.”

It was no time for jokes, I knew, but I couldn’t stop myself from making it. And now I couldn’t help but question why. It was so hard to talk about, too hard to face, but I was going to have to try.

“What am I, Harlow? What am I changing into? What am I becoming?”

Chapter 22.5

Ch-ch-ch-changes

Harlow

What a mess. I wished I’d never left the nice, orderly dump.

There are so many good reasons to live in a dump. I’d tried other venues. I’d been one of the many street people of Bloomington, lived in a tent there with a gang of singers.

There’s always the old “under the bridge” technique for home ownership, if you can find one that isn’t already inhabited by a crusty old-timer. Bridges provide a special sort of protection for trolls. They hold extra magic for us. Since our population explosion, though, something like 1% of trolls actually control all the bridges. You never know, one of these days there may be an uprising. The next time your local bridge is down, you might not want to believe the hype about bridge repairs—it could be occupied.

I’d tried assuming ownership of a cabin in the woods once. Worst idea I ever had.

The Coach and Zelda had emancipated me from their care about a year earlier, and I’d found my way to a one-room hunting shack in a parcel of private woods outside Bedrock, Indiana. I wasn’t far, actually, from the landfill where I’d eventually make my home. As scent-mapping goes, though, I was on the other side of the world.

One night, I awoke to the sound of teenagers crashing through the woods. I couldn’t make out their voices at first, but I knew it was a gang of kids. It was a cold, damp November evening, and the only people stupid enough to be entertaining themselves by blindly marching through the woods at night were a bunch of drunk redneck teens with a bottle of whiskey and nothing else to do.

“It’s up here!” someone called. Puny flashlights barely penetrated the thick layer of dirt on the windows.

I was piled into a greasy, soggy mattress, on an ancient wood-and-rope-framed bed that looked straight out of the local historical society’s pioneer village. I was cold, and tired.

Should I glamour myself? Or should I give them my true face and scare the crap out of them? Historically, trolls don’t fare so well when they do such things. They’re generally relocated against their will, via pitchforks and torches, if my parents’ stories were to be trusted. Only problem was, the English don’t really know how to kill a troll, once they’ve captured one, so there’s typically lots of torture, until the troll gets free and hurts people for realsies.

Not that I had any reason to fear a bunch of kids. I could take them, easily. Did I want to, though? Was it worth it?

Oh, I was lazy. I did put the glamour on, but only just a little bit. A middle-aged man with a shotgun and a barking dog oughtta do it.

I imagined the sound of hungry Rottweilers, snarling and barking for a juicy steak. The trees around me shook, so quickly did the night owls and squirrels flee the vicinity. Still, the kids came closer.

“D’you hear that dog?” a voice asked.

“There’s no dog,” another answered.

“Yeah, there is!” a third voice chimed.

“If there were a dog, it would be out here barking at us in person,” the second voice responded. Male. Effeminate.

I stepped into the threshold, my hands on my hips. Their pitiful flashlights went immediately to my face and I bellowed, “Get off my land, before I shoot ya dead!”

Two of the kids turned tail and ran, immediately. I could smell the urine trail for a week.

The other kid stayed.

He looked to be about sixteen. He was tall and skinny, like a fashion model from the cover of Vogue. He wore a cream-colored sweater with a billowing cowl neck, and his hair was longish in front, short in the back—very fashionable, but not typical for rural Indiana culture. He wore skinny jeans and Doc Martens that looked like they’d never seen mud before this night.

The worst thing he wore, though, was the smirk.

“I see you,” he said.

“I see you, too, you son of a bitch! Now get outta here afore I get my gun!” I growled in return.

He erupted into peals of laughter. “What are you?” he said.

“What do I look like, you silly trollop!” A troll never drops his glamour before the English unless he’s completely sure it’s the thing to do, and I wasn’t sure just yet. “Yer about to be one silly,
dead
little trollop, if’n you’re not careful,” I said.

The bastard laughed even harder. “As if!” He shook his head. “You might as well drop the accent. I can see through your disguise, anyway. I just came here for some answers. You’ve been smelling up the county for days, and if you’re going to torment me with all that stink, you might as well be of service.”

I wasn’t sure exactly what he was getting at, but I could see I wasn’t getting rid of him by asking nicely. I dropped my glamour and raged at him, full speed ahead. “You may have The Sight, child, but how about your friends? Did you bring them as an offering?”

He quaked, for a moment, his lip trembling, as if to speak. He turned and ran almost silently.

I heard a car start in the distance. Saw headlights, yards away, through the trees. I had just climbed back into my bed, when I heard the kid’s voice again.

“Okay, they’re gone,” he said. I jumped. Somehow, he had entered my cabin without my noticing. Only a fairy is capable of something like that—a particularly gifted kind of fairy, under the right circumstances. Circumstances include but are not limited to: entering the new, under-scented mansa of a troll; approaching an adolescent troll before his powers are fully formed; waking up a very tired troll in the middle of the night.

“Now, tell me what you are,” he said, calmly.

I sat up in the bed, my turn to be frightened. As I scrambled to get my feet on the floor, he sat himself down against the opposite wall of the tiny shack. In retrospect, he didn’t seem threatening, but I was young, and so inexperienced.

“I can see that you’re
different
,” he said. “I just want to know—”