Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale (17 page)

She landed on her backside in a pile of wet, decaying leaves. A pile of droppings caught my eye few feet away. Bobcat.
Shit
. I couldn’t just leave her.

I wasn’t as good at glamouring the English as Dave was. Hadn’t had much reason to learn, but I was gonna by-God try.

“You’re okay,” I said. I waved my hand in front of her like Obi-wan Kenobi. “You just went for a swim. I’m a forest ranger. I saved you from … a wild catfish or something.”

She nodded.

As long as we locked eyes, she was fine. She blinked, and started screaming again. Above the din, footsteps crashed through the woods. If Dave caught up to us, all this glamour was going to be for nothing.

“Shit! Shut up!” I yelled. I concentrated harder, giving it one last shot. I imagined myself in a forest ranger’s outfit, and not being exactly sure what that was, I pretty much just imagined I was Smoky the Bear.

She smiled, enchanted. “Smoky!” she sighed.

I lifted her onto my shoulder and ran, again, until I could see an actual human encampment. A woman sat at a picnic table with two young children, while her husband strung a hammock next to a tent. They looked reasonably safe to me.

“Go and tell those people you were lost in the woods, and you need help,” I said. “If they ask where your clothes are, you tell them you were skinny-dipping.” I pointed to the campsite, and for a moment I could even see the glamour myself—one big, furry paw, like a walking teddy bear, showing her the way.

“Thank you for saving me, Smoky,” she said, wiping a tear from her eye.

I didn’t know what to say. I shrugged. “Only you can prevent forest fires.”

After that, I sure didn’t want to go back to base camp, but I didn’t see as I had much choice.

When I returned, April was curled up next to the fireplace, inside the cabin, with a squirming pile of bobcat kittens. Dave was on the back porch, laughing as he described my rescue to Jag. Jag’s face was dark and unreadable, as usual. I spied on them through the kitchen window. I could see my clothes in a pile at Dave’s feet—wet and muddy and shredded to bits. They were all I’d brought to wear.

“He’ll come around, don’t worry,” Jag said. “A Protector protects—it’s all they know how to do.”

I didn’t understand what he meant at the time—but it was starting to come together now.

Chapter Nineteen

Iron Man

Deb

“Join us, Dave,” Harlow said. He didn’t smile, but he didn’t look upset, either. For a second, I wondered if all of this was some elaborate ruse. Was he going to turn me over to Dave, after all?

Dave eyed me. “I’m ready to eat,” he said. I shuddered, and he licked his lips suggestively, winking.

A waiter with pale green skin and curling ram-horns approached the table. “Sir,” he said to Dave. “Your usual?”

A few moments later, we were pushing aside our food to make way for Dave’s leg of goat. Still hooved and with the pelt intact, Dave picked up the bloody limb and tore off a huge bite with his tusks. “Not baaaaaaaad,” he said.

“So, what brings you to Market, Cousin?” Dave said.

Harlow gestured casually toward the vendors outside. “Oh, blacksmith, curiosities, you know—the usual. How about yourself?”

Dave looked pointedly at me. “Collecting new talent. McJagger’s got room for a couple more on his team.”

“Yeah, but what does McJagger have to offer his girls?” Harlow said.

Dave shrugged. “Sometimes winning is its own reward.”

“I know exactly what you mean,” Harlow said. “And Deb’s not playing roller derby with McJagger’s Fairy Godsmackers.”

“Roller derby?” I said. I couldn’t help myself. I was riveted. “McJagger wants me—to play roller derby?”

Dave laughed. “Yeah, kid. What did you think? He wanted to pimp you out or something?”

“Is that where Gennifer is? She’s on a roller derby team?” The words couldn’t leave my mouth fast enough. Was I panting? My heart beat so rapidly, I wanted to spring up out of my chair and run blindly to my sister.

“I’ll take you to her,” Dave said.

“The hell you will!” Harlow was standing now, and I jumped instinctively out of my chair. Derek was on his feet, as well.

Dave took another bite of his goat, and slowly rose to his full seven feet of height. “Let the girl make up her own mind, Harlow. Or can she? Is she still full of that potion of yours? Do you still mix it with Big Red or Croak to disguise the taste?”

Harlow flew across the table, his arms reaching for Dave’s neck as if he wanted to crush it in like an empty soda can. Dave ducked, skidding sideways, and the smallish cafe tables tottered and fell all around us. Derek and I huddled together beneath the potted tree, and the tiny buzzing pixies above us began to point and squeak as the fight blew into high gear.

The two of them grappled, bumping into the coffee bar near the entrance of the cafe. Bottles of flavored syrup clanged together and fell over—Dave dragged himself to his feet and caught one by the neck. Smashing it against the bar, he held it toward Harlow.

“C’mon,” he said. “Come get a flavor shot, old man.”

Harlow backed away, with Dave striding closer and closer to him. Reaching behind him, he came to our table—with Dave’s dinner still on it. His fingers closed around the goat’s hoof, and then
bam
—Harlow knocked Dave in the side of the head with his own bleeding goat leg.

Dave’s hand shot out—a bit too close. His fingers grabbed for me, and nearly caught my shirt. Derek swung his arm around me and pulled me into him, away from Dave, while Harlow swung the goat leg at him, again and again.

Dave lunged for us, and caught Derek by the wrist, slinging him into Harlow. Harlow caught the kid and set him aside, as if he’d been thrown a pillow.

Then Dave lunged for me.

Harlow lowered his head and charged at Dave in a move so fast I wasn’t sure I’d seen it, entirely. Although Dave was only a few feet from me, and Harlow twice the distance away, Harlow barreled into Dave head-first, and threw his body into the aisle of the Troll Market—straight into the crowd that had formed to watch, outside.

The only sound other than the gasps of the crowd was the clang of the blacksmith in the booth across the aisle. As Dave scrambled to his feet, Harlow lifted the bastard by his leather jacket, and dragged him backward to the smithy’s barrel of water.

A dunk and a splash, and Dave’s head was underwater. They were too evenly matched, physically. Harlow couldn’t hope to hold him for long.

Dave rose up, spewing water and shaking his head violently, like a dog. The crowd outside the smithy’s booth fell back.

“Tainted!” a girl cried out. Droplets of water shook from her hand, and I could hear her skin sizzle. She held it to her mouth, and sucked it, like you would a burn. When she pulled it away, the burn mark was translucent, and I could see her blood pulsing blue beneath it.

The crowd erupted in noise. A few people—they’re still people even if they have pig’s heads or wings, right?—tried to make their way through on the edge of the aisle. The owner of the destroyed cafe shouted spells and curses, and the pixies buzzed a staccato rhythm that was an awful lot like the “Kick His Ass” chant I heard at least once a week in the high school corridors.

The smithy bellowed, but I couldn’t understand him. (Later, I would learn he only spoke a mixture of Redneck and Gobble D’Gook.) I caught the word “Savages!” and a few choice swear words, and then a piercing shriek. I jumped, trying to see over tall heads and overlapping wings pressing closer and closer together.

Dave held a red-hot poker in the air above him, the handle wrapped in a bloody red rag. The crowd pressed further back in obvious fear, but still couldn’t seem to tear themselves away. Even the girl with the burned hand was grinning like this was the best show on Earth.

“Iron, iron!” the voices muttered. Gasps, whispers, and giggles of delight rose up in equal measure. “Iron!” The glee was unmistakable.

Then, someone yelled, “Blood! Draw blood!”

For some reason, I couldn’t take my eyes off the glowing hot tip of that poker. Dave waved it over his head with a flourish, and drool dripped down from his tusks as he smiled. I didn’t like the looks of that grin. Not. At. All.

Harlow drew a silver dagger from his jacket in the same instant that Dave’s poker came down with a vengeance. Harlow dropped the dagger to the ground, and crumpled.

He groaned, then fixed his eyes on me. “Deb, run!”

Chapter 19.5

Don’t Go Breaking My Heart

Harlow

I’d like to say I was afraid this would have happened, but that implies that I had any kind of idea what could possibly have gone wrong from taking Deb to the Market.

Looking back on it now, I guess I should have asked Zelda to meet us somewhere, but whatever. You can’t go back and change things. Best you can do is live with the mistakes you’ve made, and push on. That’s what I told myself the whole time she was gone, anyway.

But I digress. Again. At this point in the story, she ain’t gone yet. Just confused and alone, while I lay “tore up from the floor up,” to put it in her terms.

Iron is a hell of a thing. Iron hurts trolls and fae—a lot. And unlike spell damage, iron burns are permanent.

Need I elaborate about the poison and pain that coursed through me from my shoulder to my knee, in a matter of seconds? Suffice it to say it felt like a poisonous metallic snakebite coursing through my blood—I could feel my cells reacting to the iron, could feel my body fighting it, and losing.

“I’m going to kill you!” I snarled, but Dave just laughed. He knew he’d taken me out, and Deb was his for the taking—if he could catch her. I was useless, unless I could cause a big enough distraction for her to get away. And I would do anything to help her—I had to. She was my wife, and I was her Protector.

Her parents’ wings around her, my Mom and Dad smiling proudly, tears in their eyes—the fog of memories had lifted, and I saw it all clearly, then, like the razor tip of a finely sharpened knife, cutting into the flesh before you realize it’s there—I had no choice but to save her, even if it cost me my own life.

And I was fine with that. In fact, better than fine.

A new strength flowed through me. I could feel the iron racing to take me down, but somehow I knew I would find the magic to stop the poison from reaching my heart, and to save my darling Debra at the same time.

There were lots of things in this lifetime that I’d doubted, precious little I’d known for sure. But in that moment, I knew I would save her, or die trying. No matter what happened, whether the poison got to me or she didn’t return these feelings—I had to try.

Whether the iron poison got me, or Deb broke my heart in the end—either way, my heart would never be the same.

Chapter Twenty

Iron Maiden

Deb

“Iron! Blows of iron!” The voices were mingled, surrounding me. The crowd was pushing, straining, either trying to see or flee, in equal measure. The beat of the chanting pixies rose to a high-pitched whine, and Derek stared at Harlow’s crumpled frame, unmoving.