Fairy Metal Thunder (Songs of Magic, #1) (24 page)

“Uh, glad you like it,” Mitch said, patting
his arm and giving Jason a puzzled look.

“I am such a fraud!” Franco said. “In truth,
I am from Joliet, Illinois. I am not European. But I have faked zis
accent for zo long I cannot make it ztop!”

“Sorry to hear that, guy.” Mitch tried to
pull away, but Franco hugged him close, crying harder.

“I can no longer live a lie!” Franco
said.

“It’s okay, dude, seriously.” Mitch pulled
away.

Franco wiped his eyes and nose on the sleeve
of his turtleneck.

“I apologize for ze strong reaction your
music made in me,” Franco said. “Zimply notify me when you are
ready to depart for ze night, if you wish ze stagehands to assist.
Thank you for such…ah! Magical music.”

Grizlemor appeared in a puff between Jason
and Erin’s chairs. His green stomach was swollen to three times its
usual size, bulging out between his shirt and his trousers.

“Why didn’t you ask for more food?” the
goblin demanded.

“Why didn’t you leave some for other people?”
Jason asked.

The goblin belched. “You eat what you can,
when you can. That’s my philosophy.”

They hurried to pack up their instruments,
feeling both exhausted and giddy.

They slipped across the street toward they
alley where they’d parked, while the crowd was still stomping and
demanding yet another Assorted Zebras encore. Grizlemor again
carried a precariously tall stack of black instrument cases.

“Can you believe that crowd?” Mitch asked.
“We’re going to have every big music label knocking down our doors
after that.”

“This whole thing is out of control,” Dred
replied.

“In a good way,” Jason said, but Dred just
frowned.

As they approached her van, both of the back
doors opened from the inside, but the van’s interior lights
remained dark. The five of them stopped in the middle of the alley,
staring.

“Uh, Dred?” Erin asked. “Who’s in your
van?”

A small man, about three feet high, stepped
out onto the van’s back bumper. He had gray and black beard
stubble, and he chewed what looked a piece of stiff pink straw. He
wore a battered old gardening hat and a long horsehair coat over
mud-stained leather boots. The coat was open, and Jason could see
part of a belt with several drawstring pouches and a sheathed
knife.

“Who are you?” Dred asked, putting her drum
case down.

“I am Hokealussiplatytorpinquarnartnuppy
Melaerasmussanatolinkarrutorpicus
Darnathiopockettlenocbiliotroporiqqua Bellefrost.” The little man
hopped down to the asphalt, eyeballing the five of them like an old
gunfighter.

“An elf!” Grizlemor whispered.

“I come on behalf of Her Majesty Queen Mab,
Empress of Faerie, Conqueror of the Elflands,” the elf said. “Not
to mention some awfully sad-looking musicians. Buttercake here says
you have the four instruments of high magic stolen from the realm
of Faerie, which violates the Supreme Law and all of that.”

“Our instruments are not stolen!” Dred
said.

“They are kind of stolen,” Jason
whispered.

“What?” Mitch said. “You never told us
that.”

“I thought it was kind of obvious,” Jason
said.

“You will return the four instruments to me,”
the elf said. “Or Buttercake and I will be forced to take them from
you.”

Behind him, the smallest horse Jason had ever
seen, even smaller than a miniature pony, jumped out of the van. It
floated gently to the ground beside the tiny man. It had golden
fur, a pink mane, and a pink horn the color of rock candy jutting
from the center of its forehead. Its eyes were huge, the color of
chocolate.

“He’s got a unicorn!” Grizlemor squealed. He
disappeared in a green puff, and the stack of equipment he’d been
carrying crashed to the asphalt.

“Are you giving them up, or am I fighting you
for ‘em?” the elf asked.

“We’ll return them when we’re done,” Jason
said.

“When do you figure that might be?” the elf
asked.

“Whenever we’re done being rock stars,” Mitch
said.

“Which we haven’t really started yet,” Dred
added.

“A day or two?” the elf asked.

“Maybe a few years?” Erin said. “Not
forever.”

“Years!” The elf spat on the ground. “You’ve
got ten seconds.”

“Maybe we should give them back,” Jason
suggested, but the other three told him to shut up.

“Three, two, and one,” the elf said. “Last
chance.”

“We need these instruments,” Mitch said.

“Guess you made your choice,” the elf said.
“Buttercake…go get ‘em, girl.”

The little unicorn pawed at the ground like a
bull and lowered its head. It pointed its horn at each of them in
turn.

“Okay,” Erin said, “That is the cutest thing
I’ve ever seen. I’m taking a picture.” She took out her phone.

The unicorn charged. She grew larger with
every step, turning into a full-size horse, and then a giant horse
the size of rhinoceros. Her pink horn grew into a long spike, and
sharp barbs of horn curled out all over its surface.

A double row of pink spikes grew out through
her mane and continued all the way down her back. Pink armor plates
formed over her ribs and joints.

The huge, beastly unicorn opened its mouth
and blew out a wide plume of fire. Its horn pointed right at Mitch
as it charged.

“Not so cute!” Erin screamed.

Everyone backed away except Dred, who dropped
to her knees by her drum case and flipped it open. She set the
snare drum on the ground and pounded it with both fists.

The ground beneath them quaked, and shock
waves rippled toward the unicorn, shattering asphalt and concrete
like they were glass. Dred’s van bounced up and down, and the elf
was knocked flat on his back. He fought to regain his balance, but
each time he tried to stand, another shock wave toppled him
again.

The massive, armored unicorn kept charging
forward against the shock waves, but she began to stumble and
stagger back. She let out an annoyed snort, and then two huge flaps
of skin peeled away from her sides. They formed into pink, leathery
bat wings. She leaped into the air and climbed high above them in
the alley, beating her wings and blowing another jet of fire.

Dred stopped playing. “Are you guys going to
help?” she asked. “Mitch, make a little storm or something!”

“Uh, okay…” Mitch took the fairy keyboard
from its case and knelt in front of it. The device took no
electricity at all—it ran on some kind of magic. Mitch stretched
his fingers above the keys, but then he hesitated.

Above them, the unicorn twisted in tight
circles just above the alley. It was growing even larger, its body
longer and snakelike, the pink armor plates sprouting everywhere.
Its cloven hooves cracked, split and unfolded into thick pink
talons.

It turned again, and they saw the unicorn’s
face had become thick, wide and reptilian. Two golden horns had
grown out on either side of the spiky pink ones. It let out a deep,
earthy roar that shook the streetlights. The unicorn had become a
pink and gold dragon.

“Hurry!” Dred shouted to Mitch.

“I can’t think of what to play!” Mitch
said.

“Something about rain, maybe?” Erin
suggested. She blew on her harmonica, and a breeze swept through
the alley.

Mitch played the melody for the Eurythmics’
“Here Comes the Rain Again.” A huge, dense blue cloud filled the
upper reaches of the alley, blocking their view of the dragon. A
heavy downpour began immediately.

Jason knelt in the street, trying to pry open
his guitar case. One of the latches was stuck. He must have closed
it carelessly in the rush to pack up their things. He kept looking
up at the sky through the rain, wondering where the dragon would
reappear.

“Mitch, a storm!” Dred shouted. “Not just a
little rain! Not even purple rain!”

Mitch switched over to a classical song.
“Tchaikovsky,” he said. “Number Five.”

“Whatever!” Dred said.

The clouds filling the alley swelled and
turned black. Balls of lightning bounced and crackled between the
buildings, and the rain turned to hard, pelting hail.

The pink dragon came barreling down through
the clouds, its jaws aimed right at Erin’s head, as if it was
following the sound of her harmonica.

Erin looked up and saw the pink reptilian
face rushing down at her through the blinding rain and hail. She
didn’t see the big claw coming up behind her, the talon extended to
hook through her as if the dragon planned to pick her up by her rib
cage.

“Erin!” Jason yelled. He dove behind her,
blocking the dragon’s foot. One huge claw ripped diagonally across
his back, slashing him open. He tumbled to the pavement with Erin
in his arms. Her harmonica skittered away through the falling ice.
Erin pulled free of him and crawled after it.

The dragon’s claw turned Jason over on his
back. Its maw breathed smoldering hot air in his face, and it
glared at him with dark, angry eyes.

For some reason, all he could say was,
“You’re a unicorn.”

The dragon’s head curled back and its jaw
widened, and it looked ready to bite his head off.

Erin blew a long, deep note on her harmonica,
blowing a stiff wind up into one of the dragon’s wings. The dragon
tilted over to one side, and Erin threw herself across Jason so she
could blow wind into both its wings at the same time.

The dragon’s wings acted like sails, lifting
the dragon high into the air. The tip of one claw cut Jason’s ear
and scratched along his head as the dragon soared out of reach.

The black clouds lashed the dragon with hail
and lightning as it twisted and roared above them, jetting out a
stream of fire. It started fighting its way down against the
wind.

Jason crawled to his case and pulled at the
jammed latch again. Then he turned the case on its side and bashed
it against the street, breaking the latch altogether. The case fell
open, and he caught his guitar by the neck as it tumbled toward the
pavement.

Jason stood up, squinting against the rain as
he found the bright shape of the dragon wriggling in and out of the
swirling black clouds. He began to play. His guitar still felt hot,
still charged up from the concert.

The rain turned to steam around him, and he
played faster and harder as the dragon clawed its way down towards
them.

He felt again the heat building all around
him. He wanted to hit the dragon with all the power the guitar had.
He kept playing, switching to the guitar riff from “Light My Fire”
as if to really drive the point home. The guitar wasn’t doing the
work for him now. Jason had to make this happen himself.

He played until the air around him was
scorching hot. The dragon managed to fold in its wings, and it dove
straight for Erin.

Jason struck all six strings and released the
heat bubble, with the face of his guitar pointed directly at the
dragon. A giant fireball raced away from him, punching a wormhole
of steam through the sheets of falling hail.

It struck the dragon and ignited, casting off
blazing comets that sliced up the black clouds.

The dragon roared as the flames swept over it
and engulfed its entire body. It plummeted towards them.

Jason dropped his guitar and grabbed Erin’s
hand, and they ran away together, toward the huge crowd of fans
that had gathered behind the club and now gaped at the burning
dragon falling towards the street.

The dragon’s colossal body crashed to the
ground, sending a wave of the shattered asphalt high into the air.
Jason and Erin toppled over, and so did most of the gathered
crowd.

The flames slowly twisted into dark smoke, as
did the dragon body itself, leaving a dark heap of pink smoke
behind. The stormclouds began to break up, and shafts of neon light
from the Fleet Farm billboard above crept into the alley.

Jason helped Erin to her feet. Mitch and Dred
sat up nearby—they’d run, too, abandoning their instruments.
Everybody was covered in smoldering pink soot.

A tiny unicorn horn tumbled down through the
smoke and clinked against the asphalt.

The audience burst into applause and
whistles. Mitch waved, nodding, soaking it up.

Erin looked back at the drift of pink ash
snowing down over their instruments. Then she looked at Jason.

“So…did we just kill a dragon?” she
asked.

“I think so.”

“That’s more excitement than I expected in
Minneapolis.” She frowned and touched his cheek. “It got you pretty
bad, didn’t it?”

“Yeah, how’s it look?” Jason turned around so
she could where the dragon claw had raked his back. When he faced
her again, she looked like she would burst into tears.

“Jason, I was talking about your
ear
,”
she said. “I didn’t know about that.”

“I got it when I saved your life from that
dragon,” he said. “Remember that?”

“I think I do.” Erin stood on her tiptoes and
gave him a long kiss.

“Buttercake!” the elf’s voice wailed.

The rough-looking elf with the impossibly
long name knelt in the pink ash, clutching the unicorn horn and
weeping. “Poor, sweet Buttercake!” he cried.

Grizlemor strolled out from behind a dented
trashcan, looking shocked.

“You beat the dragon?” the goblin asked
Jason.

“Yeah,” Jason said. “By the way, nice job
mentioning that unicorns turn into dragons. Before you ran
off.”

“I thought everyone knew that,” Grizlemor
said.

“Now I’ll have to take her back to the swamp
and regrow her!” the elf cried, waving the horn at them. “I hope
you’re happy!” He turned and ran away into the dissolving pink
smoke.

“Should we go catch that elf?” Jason
asked.

“If you don’t, he’ll be able to tell the
fairies about you,” Grizlemor said.

Jason and Erin pursued the elf down to a
sewer grate at the end of the alley. He slipped into the drain
under the sidewalk, an opening much too narrow for either of them
to follow him. They heard his footsteps splash away.