“Yep. Right here.” Her voice was closer to my left shoulder now.
“I left my sword downstairs. Can you get it for me, please?”
She took a step forward, but I held my arm out to block her progress. She was actually going to try to walk past that troll, just because I asked her to. Talk about undying loyalty. I wanted to kiss her, but now was not the time. “Not like that. Use your mad witch skills.”
“You sure?” she asked.
“I’m going to drop the bubble off you temporarily, just in case.”
She nodded, and I communicated the vision of her stepping outside the Green power while she did her thing. Her body immediately lost the green-colored tinge the others of us still had.
Jared touched my hand. “Jayne, there’s a witch in here that will feel her casting.”
“Good. Maybe she’ll show her ugly face so we can slap it a few hundred times.”
“Jayne, you should probably be more cautious,” Scrum said, sounding worried.
“Yeah, I probably should,” I said, turning on him. “But what if my roommate is in that nasty stomach of that troll, and I only have two minutes to get him out before the stomach acid kills him completely? What then? You want to let Tim die?”
He shook his head quickly. “No. Of course not.”
“Jayne,” Tony said, “I know you mean well, but if he’s already eaten…”
“Don’t say it, Tony!” I whipped my head around to glare at him. “Not you. Don’t go there. I never lost hope with you, and I won’t lose it with Tim. This is not negotiable!”
He nodded and said nothing in response. He knew me well enough to know when I was beyond reasoning with, and I was so there right then. So, so there. Felicia took his hand in hers, but nodded too. I knew they were there to back me up, even if I was about to do something that most people would consider stupid.
The troll took another step toward us, lifting his club onto his shoulder. He looked down at me and smiled. He had only one tooth in his bottom jaw, and it hooked up over his upper lip. “Hello, small person. I eat you.”
“Or…,” I held up a finger, “you could go eat that witch. The old one? Knobby knees? Bad hair day? I hear they’re pretty tasty.” I nodded exaggeratedly, hoping it would help convince him.
Sam started muttering her incantation behind me, and I didn’t want the troll to notice what she was doing, so I moved to my right, drawing his attention with me by doing some moves I’d practiced in front of the mirror after I’d had too many cups of hard cider one night last December. “Ever seen someone do the Electric Slide?” I asked, trying to imagine the tune for the stupid song in my head. All I could hear, though, was the macarena — the one song that entered my brain in 1993 and never left. Oh well. It’s not like he’s going to know the difference. I threw one arm out and then the next, crossing them over as I hummed the tune under my breath.
The troll’s head tilted to the side a little and he frowned, his giant bushy eyebrows joining together in the middle of his forehead. “What you do?”
I smiled. My plan was totally working. As he stared at me, captivated by me busting a move, Sam was whirling up a hell of a demon sword retrieval spell. I could feel the electric current her power was pulling from the ley line beneath us. Just to be safe, I increased the Green protection around my friends. I couldn’t even imagine what would happen if that spell bounced back on us. We’d probably all be stabbed with the sword, one giant fae shish kebab for that troll to munch on at his leisure. Yikes.
“Heyyyy macarena!” Putting my hands on my hips, I swiveled them around wide. “See, Troll? This is the macarena.” I was already sweating. “It’s way better than that Electric Slide dance I told you about.” I continued with my moves, getting more frantic as I sensed his interest waning. “Feel free to join in. It’s better when there’s more people. Or fae or trolls or whatever.” I motioned for my friends to join me, but all of them save Becky just stared at me like I’d lost my mind.
Becky jumped over, though, and started doing her moves, of course trying but failing to show me up. I had to duck out of the way at one point, because damn, her elbows and knees were suddenly everywhere. I thought my groove was bad, but hers made everyone cringe; unfortunately, her Spanish was even worse than her dancing.
“Hey, licky loma, micky moma, ecky babba … hey micky moma, bicky boma, lakka lena … hey ricky dicky nicky wicky bicky boma … heeeey macarena!” She clapped her hands and jumped up, turning one rotation to start her ridiculously bad imitation of a macarena in the other direction.
“What in the hell are you doing?” I asked, doing another hip swivel. I was a little out of breath.
“I’m doing the macarena, obviously. This is fun.” She winked at her boyfriend who was staring at her with a mix of fascination and horror.
I shook my head. More pixie dusting happened here than I had intended. Had to be. Apparently, my bubble shun wasn’t quite as good as I thought it was at keeping out Tim’s buttdust.
“Jayne!” Sam yelled. “Hold out your hand!”
Lucky for me, my hand was already out as I was starting another macarena tour. I couldn’t have planned it better. One second I was standing there crossing a hand over to the opposite shoulder, and the next, my outstretched arm had a sword flying toward it. I snatched it out of midair and then held it up for the beast to see. “Heyyyy macarena!” I shouted my last line with maybe a little too much glee as I came to a standstill, my sword held out in front of me and angled up so it could be pointed at the head of the troll. My arm was shaking with the power of the adrenaline thrill going through me.
Everything suddenly stopped: the music in my head, the shucking and jiving of my water sprite buddy, the movements of my friends, and the glow of the Green bubble that used to surround us all. Oops. Did I do that with the macarena or the sword?
A voice behind the troll startled me and made me jump. I almost lost the sword from my grip, but held on just in time to keep it from burying its tip in the ballroom floor. A glance to my left told me my friends were all frozen solid, stuck in some kind of suspended animation. Sam and Felicia were focused on my sword, Scrum and Jared toward the door, Tony and Finn on the troll; Becky was in the middle of swinging her tiny hips around, her tiny butt poking out diagonally. I nearly lost my water when I heard the angry voice coming at me from behind the great, big beast whose body was still but whose eyeballs were still working. His salivary glands were still functioning too; a glob of drool left his lips and landed with a plop next to his feet.
“How dare you come into my home and wake me from my beauty sleep with the macarena!” Through the entrance limped the witch with her cane tapping the floor, her hair even worse than before.
Chapter Fourteen
“WELL, HELLO THERE, FATE.” I smiled. At least, I tried to smile. It was an effort, seeing as how I was scared shitless. She might have been tiny, but that didn’t stop the power from oozing out of her. She frightened me more than Maggie on her worst day.
“You may call me … Geraldine.”
I opened my mouth to call her that, and then something made me stop. A zap of The Green or something from the ether got me right in the throat, stopping the words from coming out. Instead, I said what was foremost on my mind.
“Lie!”
She banged her cane on the ground, sending a shock wave of angry energy right at me. I felt the negativity flow up from the floor and right into my bones. It settled on the top of my head, making me want to ruffle my hair to get it off me. I ignored the temptation, though, sure The Green was still protecting me, even though I couldn’t see its green tinge around me anymore. This old witch was just throwing illusions at me, and I’d practiced for months with Sam to shake that crap off. Hoo yah, can’t touch this. It’s hammer time, bitch.
“Why do you say that?!” she yelled.
I shrugged as the effects of her tantrum wore off, falling away like dandruff flakes. Apparently she didn’t like being called a liar. Oh wel
l, too bad, so sad because she is a damn liar and I’m not afraid to say so. The truth shall set me free, that’s what my old grandma Maggie always told me. “Because. I know that’s not your name.” How did I know that? I had no idea. Maybe it was the look on her face. I felt like I was being tested.
“Fine.” She pursed her lips for a few seconds. “You may call me Judith.” That felt more truthful to me than the last name she’d chosen, so I didn’t fight her on it.
“Judy for short?” I suggested.
“No.”
“Jude?”
“No!”
“J-baby?”
She looked like she was about to blow her own head off in frustration, but then she suddenly stopped and let out a breath. My plan to throw her off her game had failed. Dammit. I guess it’s not hammer time.
She leaned in toward me, closing one eye and squinting the other. “Why do you bait me so? Are you so ignorant that you do not sense the power capable of destroying everything you hold dear, right here in front of you?”
I shrugged. “Maybe. I’ve sure been accused of it enough times.” I rested the point of my sword on the ground, spinning the hilt around a little so she’d notice the jewels imbedded in it. Fear me, old bag. Fear me like you fear the mirror.
“Why are you in my home?” she asked, ignoring my weapon. I wasn’t stupid enough to think she didn’t understand where it came from, though. She was just showing me very clearly that she didn’t fear my shit at all. It was a very effective intimidation tactic on her part. I stopped spinning the sword and started worrying more about how I was going to avoid a good, old-fashioned pants peeing in my very near future.
“Well, I came here originally to stay the night, but now I’m pretty sure I’d be happier sleeping at a rest stop along the highway.” I scrunched up my nose. “Less … troll-y there.”
“You should go back to where you belong.”
I shook my head. “Where? The Green Forest? No, I’m pretty sure I belong here on the Isle of Skye. Twice a year, in fact. It’s already been decided, so there’s nothing you can do about it.”
“Who decided? Was it you?”
I had to think about that for a second or two. “Kind of. Mostly it was the dragon, but I guess you could say I was on board.”
“Making a great personal sacrifice for the entire world, is that it?” She cackled, leaning on her cane when the laughter became too much. She finished her happy seizure off with some wheezing and a sludgy cough, probably dredging up at least one rotten lobe from one of her lungs in the process, from the sound of it.
Her words made me feel stupid and young. It didn’t matter that I actually was those things — way too young and not that fae educated; it was the principle. As far as I was concerned, only two people had the right to say that crap about me, and she wasn’t one of them. Okay, now it’s hammer time.
“All right, listen up Judith … I want my pixie friend back out of that troll’s stomach, whole, alive, and unhurt, and I want to leave this place with all my friends — also whole, alive and unhurt.” I’d learned long ago that it was important to be clear and complete when negotiating with witches. They did so love to exploit the loopholes they imagined in my speech.
“And what will you give me in exchange for these gifts?”
I scoffed at her. “Gifts? What gifts? We made a reservation! And you accepted it, so that means you agreed to host us for the night and we agreed to pay you for it. The deal was struck and you reneged. Time to pay the piper, Jude.”
She gestured around the room. “You came. You danced. I hosted. Now it’s time for you to pay the piper.” She cackled again.
I nodded, narrowing my eyes at her. “Ah-haaa, I get it. Sneaky. I guess we should have read the brochure a little closer.”
She hummed under her breath for a few seconds before responding. “I guess you should have, young fae.”
I hated to pull the Mother card on her, but she was leaving me with no choice. “You do know who I am, right?”
She shrugged. “The question is, do you know who you are? It matters not what I think about you.”
I shook my head. “You have got to be related to Maggie. There’s no way there are two women out in the world as ugly as you are and who are as frustrating as you are, and not be sisters or something.”
She scowled, her voice coming out a little growly. “Do not say that name in my presence.”
“What? Maggie? Maggie the witch?” I switched to my singing voice. “Green things, green things, lovely jubbly green things…”
“Enough!”
I jumped a little, surprised to have someone hating my singing voice so vehemently. I hadn’t even gotten started, really. I had at least three more verses in me.
“I have heard enough! I’m going to bed.” She started to turn.
“Name your price, witch,” I said, leaning on my sword. “And hurry up about it, before my pixie friend gets digested.”
She shrugged, waving her cane out to the side as she shuffled to the door. “You may leave any time you like. But you must retrieve your pixie friend yourself.” She turned her head to the side, enough that I could see her grinning evilly as she gestured with a sweeping arm. “Go ahead, elemental, Mother to the fae, sacrificial lamb for the world. You have your sword.”
I frowned first at the troll and then at her. “I don’t get it.”
She continued to smile, her blackened teeth looking a little too pointed for my liking. She chuckled for a few seconds and then stopped, turning to face me more fully, her smile and humor dropping away in an instant. “You say your pixie is inside the troll?” She shrugged. “Gut him.”
I swallowed with effort. “Gut him? You can’t be serious.”
“The Fates do what needs must. The Mother does as well.” She turned to shuffle out the door, but I wasn’t ready to let her leave yet.
“Wait!” I yelled, running around her and holding out the sword between us to stop her forward progress. “You can’t leave yet.” Hammer time, my ass. It was panic time, and everyone in the room knew it, probably even that troll whose eyeballs were still following me around. I was waaay out of my league with this nutbag.
One of the witch’s eyebrows went up and disappeared into her rat nest hairdo. “I can and I will.”
I shook my head, falling more fully into panic mode. “No. Not until you fix things.”
She stared at me unblinkingly, and for the first time, she didn’t sound entirely evil. “Not all things can be fixed, child. Sometimes we must make hard decisions and leave things as they are. Other times we must upset the balance. You will find yourself at a crossroads many times in your life. Will you take the easy path or the difficult one? Or perhaps take neither and instead retrace your steps?” She paused and sniffed the air before continuing. “Who are you? Who dares speak to me from afar?”
Since I hadn’t yet answered her and figured she was just chatting with voices she heard in her head, I responded to her first statement. “I’ve never taken the easy path in my entire life.” I lifted my chin. “And I’ll never go backwards. Never.”
Her casual expression morphed into something sinister. “Lie.” She narrowed her eyes at me, speaking slowly and carefully. It felt way too much like an incantation for me not to be almost pissing my pants at hearing it.
“Pay the toll with the blood of a troll, or pick the path to stay the wrath, choose the first, and dark days you will find, choose another and be gone from time. The cries of many will weigh you down. The cries of one will bring Lycurgus round. The blood of the Mother will bring them late. The tears of the Father will seal their fate.” And then she disappeared. One second she was there being ugly and pissing me off with her horrible rhyme, and the next, she was fartsmoke, leaving only an evil stench behind.
“Judith!” I yelled out into the room, looking all around. Only my own voice echoed back at me. “Judy! Jude! J-baby!” I raised the volume. “Hey! I wasn’t done talking to you!” I jogged over to her pet
troll, holding my knife by his leg. “I’m going to cut him! I swear I’ll do it!” Her rhyme swam around in my head in pieces, disconnected and senseless. Did she say that I could pay the toll with this guy’s blood? But then what about that dark days thing she said? Did that come from using the blood or not using it? I should have asked her to write it down. Who the hell is going to remember something that long after only hearing it one time? What a stupid way to deliver a prophecy.
My threat to poke the troll did nothing. Not one thing happened. My friends remained frozen all around me, and I remained stuck in the nightmare where I had to make a choice between killing a somewhat innocent beast to maybe rescue my roommate or walk away and let him definitely become troll poop. Talk about being between a rock and hard place. Odysseus had nothin’ on me.
Chapter Fifteen
THE PANIC LEVELS INSIDE MY heart and head were rising to dangerously high levels. The Green bubble surrounding my friends increased in intensity, reacting to my stress. Everyone was still frozen in place, and there were no signs of Tim being among the land of the living. My chest ached with the pain of never seeing him again. I sent several bolts of extra power from The Green into each of my friends, but it had zero effect. Zombies. All of them. Motherfucker!
“Tim!” I screamed, running over to the entrance of the ballroom, looking down the hallway. Hope had me believing he could be somewhere else in this evil house and not in that troll’s intestines. I even took a few steps outside the ballroom, staring down into the front foyer, hoping to see him there fixing his hair in the mirror. The ogre was gone, and except for a few million sparkles here and there on the tables, chairs, and area rug, there were no pixies in sight.
I went back into the ballroom and walked up to each of my friends, slapping them one at a time, just to see if it would do anything, but nothing happened, and none of them even got a red mark on their cheeks. It was like they weren’t really there; these beings were merely placeholders for the real thing. I even went so far as to kiss Spike on the lips to see if some kind of fairytale, true love’s kiss would make any difference, but nope. Nada. I got no love from my peeps at all.