by Simon Archer
“Yeah,” Jodie shot a longing look at Jane. “Guess I’ll have to console myself with all the extra treasure my DKP got me.”
“I’ll keep that in mind when I’m using my Seeker’s Pathfinder.” The slime girl laughed. “Wow, this was pretty fun. Be sure to invite me again.” She smiled brightly. “However, it’s high time I got back to the Bazaar and found you someone to mine this place for riches.” She rubbed her hands together greedily.
“I look forward to seeing you again,” I waved to her as she pulled out her teleportation device.
“Come visit sometime, Garrett.” She winked at me. “I’ll make it worth your while.” Then she disappeared in a flash of light.
“I think that one wishes to mate with you, Garrett,” Barnabas said when she was gone. “Remember what I said about children. Either have just one or build an army of offspring unlike any the universe has seen.” He clapped his hands. “There is no in-between.”
“I feel like there’s most definitely an in-between there,” Jodie said right before I used our teleportation array to teleport us back to the Return Stones we had set up in Zorak.
“You don’t even have one child, so you do not know,” Barnabas said after he’d recovered from being dematerialized and then reassembled miles away. “I have sixteen. I know.” He shook his head as he crawled to his feet. “Each one is more difficult than the last.” He shook his head. “And the first one? That’s always the easiest one.” He looked at me beseechingly. “Please just stop there.”
“Or raise an army,” I said with a laugh as the princesses came over to greet us.
“Or raise an army,” he reiterated as Zemia hug-tackled me and began peppering me with kisses.
“We missed you so much,” Zemia said in between kisses. “We were worried that you had perished, especially when Hudson fell over dead. But then he came back to life.” More kisses rained down on me after that.
“You won’t have to worry about Hudson dying again,” Gobta piped up. “I have wisely invested a small portion of my skill points into making him a real zombie that is no longer tethered to my glorious self.”
“I made pancakes to celebrate,” Elephelie said as she held out a platter full of steaming cakes. “And fried fish with that dough on the outside you like.”
“Well,” Queenie said, ignoring my plight as she walked over and snatched a cake, “It seems like a feast is in order.” She chewed thoughtfully. “A never-ending feast full of honey, candy, and pancakes.”
“And then maybe a different kind of dessert,” Zemia cooed in my ear in a way that made me forget about food entirely. “One that lasts for hours.” Her breath was hot on my neck. “And hours.”
42
Erlking
I was not sure how long I had walked across the crimson beaches of the Summer Demesne, but I had long since grown tired of the red sand and the scarlet waves that lapped against it.
I was also sick of the relentless sun that pounded down on the back of my neck as I moved, but there was nothing for that. Complaining about the sun in the Heart of Summer would amount to little. That said, I longed to return home, and as I turned my head upward, I could almost see the gateway to my own world.
Alas, if I returned home now, I would disappoint my lord Zaxcs. He was counting on me to get rid of Garrett Andrews, and while he couldn’t act against the mortal himself, I certainly could. As long as I was careful, anyway. I couldn’t leave any tracks that could lead back to the God of Destruction. I had to leave room for plausible deniability.
That was why I was walking in this cursed summer desert instead of simply willing myself to be there. After all, I might have left hoofprints in the sand, but no one would be able to track my Aura, especially when I kept it concealed as I did now.
So, I walked and walked and walked until I came to the only building on this godforsaken planet.
It wasn’t large, and from the look of it, you would have never known that Titania, the sometimes eldest of the Fairy Queens, lived there. That said, it had a certain quaintness to it. I could certainly appreciate the white walls and blue trim. I even somewhat liked the waist-high red grass that made up the lawn, and I had to admit that the wrought-iron fence and gate guarding the property from the endless ruby red sand had a certain appeal to it.
Still, none of those amused me as much as the vehicle that sat in the driveway. Why Titania felt the need for the motorcycle was beyond me, but she had always been an indulgent fairy.
This indulgence was probably why she had several Ents chained down around the property so that they could not move. I knew my sister fancied the fruit that grew in their branches, and these living trees were certainly full of the stuff.
I ignored them, though. While the plight of the Ents straining against their bonds concerned me in the “that is incredibly horrible” sort of way, I knew there was nothing to be done for them. They had somehow fallen into my sister’s grasp, and there they would remain until they either perished or she grew bored with them.
Those two events would likely occur nearly simultaneously.
I steadied myself as I stared at the Ents for a long moment. Then I drew myself to my full height and made my way toward the gate.
I made it exactly three and a third steps before a giant centipede-like thing exploded upward from the grass where, presumably, it had hidden from sight. The thing was long with a segmented body that stretched nearly ten feet in length, had shaggy, blood-red fur, nearly a thousand legs, and six huge pincers on the front of its face that gnashed and frothed.
It took one look at me with its solid glowing golden eyes and then began to bark like a yappy chihuahua.
“Hello, Spot,” I said with a sigh as the giant centipede threw itself at the gate with so much force that the metal actually bent and swayed. Then the thing did it three more times before calming very slightly and shaking its huge head.
“Go away,” it snarled in a voice that reminded me of the tortured scream of the torment dimension.
“I need to see my sister, Spot,” I replied as calmly as I could because the creature was eyeing me like it wanted to turn me into a snack.
“No!” It barked several more times. “You are an intruder! Back Away!” More barking.
“Look, I’m actually allowed to be here.” I rolled my eyes and took a step forward which caused the creature to raise its hackles.
“Listen, buddy,” the centipede snarled. “If you don’t leave, I’m going to leap this fence. I can totally do it. And then I’m going to bite you in half and make a nest out of your insides.”
“Spot, come on. You know me.” I took another step forward, and this time, I pulled a mammon steak from my pocket and held it out in front of me. “I’m the one who brings you treats, remember?”
“Treat?” Spot asked, eyes fixed on the steak as I moved it back and forth. Then I tossed it over the gate. It was consumed so quickly that the shockwave of Spot’s leap actually made me stumble back a step. “More?” He looked at me imploringly.
“You can have another after I speak with Lady Titania,” I said as I produced another mammon steak. “What do you say? Will you let Uncle Erlking go inside?”
“I don’t know,” Spot replied, clearly torn between treats and his duty. “My lady doesn’t like when people talk to her, but on the other hand, I do like treats.”
“I think that’s settled then,” I said as I gripped the gate and unlatched it very carefully. “I’ll see Titania while you enjoy this second steak.” I set it on the ground beside the open gate. “Does that sound like a deal?”
“It does.” Spot waggled happily and moved toward the steak as I stepped beside him and made my way toward the door. Then I grabbed the honey-colored knocker and smacked it against the door.
“I don’t want any!” Titania called from inside, her shrill voice nearly splitting my brain into pieces. “Go away. Goddammit, where’s that fuckin’ worthless dog?”
I knocked again and heard an infuriated cr
y of frustration from inside, which admittedly was satisfying. Then, as she started stomping toward the door, I held out my hand to block her peephole. My trick must have worked because a moment later, I started hearing latches being unlocked.
“Why if it isn’t my dear eldest brother, Erlking?” Titania growled when she’d pulled the door open a crack. Then she slammed it shut in my face. “Go away.”
“I would if I could, dear sister,” I said as I knocked on the door again. “But if I did, you wouldn’t hear the news, and I do say you’ll want to hear about the new plaything Mab’s gotten. It’s pretty amazing, actually.”
“Whaaa?” Titania said from the other side of the door. Then before I could even blink, the front door opened, and I got my first good look at my sister in millennia. She hadn’t grown much, still standing barely four feet tall with the same smattering of freckles across her nose, but everything else seemed different because her green eyes flashed with such malevolence that I would have shivered at the sight. Only that would have been showing fear, and predators chased things that showed fear. As the Master of the Wild Hunt, I knew that well.
“Does Mab really have a new plaything?” Titania asked, and the threat in her voice was obvious. “Because if she did, that would violate the accords of Summer and Winter.” She whipped her hand out, and a huge scroll appeared in it. She unfurled it, causing untold yards of parchment to hit the ground in a heap as she showed me a section written in blood and silver.
Mab doesn’t get to have nice things.
“Yes, well, you may have to enforce that one,” I laughed, “because she was given a very, very nice thing. By Rhapsody, no less.”
“She was?” Titania gasped. “I must hear more.” She spun on one heel and retreated into her house. “Come, brother. Tell me of this nice thing so that I may discern if it is truly a nice thing or merely a bauble meant to annoy me.”
“Oh, I assure you, it’s much more than a bauble,” I replied as I moved through the door and set foot into the home of the Queen of the Hot and Bright.
It was a strange setting because the walls were jam-packed with all sorts of pictures of children playing at the beach. That wouldn’t have been that creepy if it wasn’t for the adults in those pictures because all of them had their eyes burned out, so their faces were little more than bits of charred paper.
“I haven’t got all day, brother.” Titania gestured at me from where she stood in the plush red carpet just beyond the cheap, laminate tile-filled entryway. “And make sure you take off your shoes.” Then she cackled horrifically at my lack of shoes because I had hooves and disappeared into a room on the left. “Would you care for some refreshment? Perhaps a sandwich?”
“I’m okay, actually,” I said, trying to ignore the way my stomach twisted at the thought of Titania’s horrific cooking.
“Great.” Titania reappeared in front of me in a flash and stared up at me with the two unblinking suns she called eyes. “Tell me about Mab’s new plaything.”
And honestly, what else could I do but honor her request and tell her all about Garrett Andrews? It was the brotherly thing to do after all.
A Note from the Author
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