by E.J. Stevens
“What does it matter?” I asked.
“Dinner pizza has sauce and cheese and dessert pizza has cinnamon and sugar,” she said with the long suffering sigh of someone who gets asked the same question a million times a night.
“We’ll take four dinner pizzas and two dessert pizzas for the kids and a stiff drink for me,” I said.
“Abracadabra, enjoy your meal,” she said, steaming food appearing on the table. “Don’t take any food in the ball pit and no puking in the bouncy palace. Bon appétit.”
With that unpalatable pronouncement, the waitress skated away and my charges fell on their meals like, well, a hungry demon, troll, and brownie.
I pushed my food away, letting the kids have it, and wandered toward the kitchen. Curiosity is an affliction that often proves fatal to my kind, but I couldn’t resist a peek. The restaurant’s teleportation of hot food from the kitchen to our table was a handy trick.
I liked tricks, the sneakier the better.
With a quick glance up and down the restaurant, I pushed into the kitchen. The swinging doors squeaked behind me and I winced. I’d planned on sauntering in and charming the information out of the waitress or perhaps a buxom line cook. I hadn’t bargained for the sea of pleading faces.
Dozens of diminutive faeries, mostly hobgoblins and hinkypunk, turned gaunt, grime-covered wide-eyed faces my way, chains rattling where the iron dragged along the greasy kitchen floor. Some bowed their heads, averting their eyes, but most stared at me, their pale faces and feverish eyes painfully bright above iron collars.
“Well, I’ll be a bugbear’s uncle,” I muttered.
“Please, sir,” a female goblin cried out, an infant held to her chest. “Please, help us.”
I stepped forward, grimacing. This was going to sting a bit. I grabbed a grimy dishcloth and wrapped it around my hand, but the iron still penetrated the cloth and skin, leaving behind a deep, gnawing ache. I savored the pain, and made it a promise, one that would return to Ratfink and his flunkies in spades.
Using my enhanced speed and feline reflexes, I freed the kitchen slaves in minutes. The faeries were already heading for the delivery entrance, making their escape, when Hob burst through the swinging doors at my back.
“Ye better come quick,” he said. “The little lad’s in trouble.”
Hob rushed out the doors, stubby legs a blur of motion as he ran through the restaurant toward the gaming area beyond.
“I’ve barely been gone ten minutes,” I said, yelling over the incessant whir and clank of gaming machines. “Sparky was eating when I left. What trouble could he possibly get up to?”
“Ye know that rule ‘bout no food in the ball pit?” he asked. He came to a stop at an enormous aquarium tank filled with brightly colored balls, and put a finger to the side of his nose.
“Let me guess,” I said, eyes scanning the tank. “The kid brought his bloody food in the ball pit.”
“Got it in one, cat lord,” Roz said, stepping out to block my path.
“Octopuuusss!” Sparky squealed.
I whipped my head toward the tank, eyes widening. Now I knew why food wasn’t allowed in the ball pit.
“That’s no octopus,” I said with a hiss. “What is that thing?”
Tentacles writhed through the balls, suction cups the size of my head clinging to the aquarium glass as the creature pulled itself along.
“It don’t matter,” Roz said, switchblade opening with a snick of metal on metal. “You break the rules, you pay the price.”
“Another time, Roz,” I said. “Looks like my dance card is full.”
Roz lunged forward, leading with the switchblade, and I deflected easily with my claws, pushing his arm wide. Instead of maneuvering around the wererat, I dove inside his guard, and head-butted his face hard enough to break his nose. Cartilage crunched, and I smiled, licking my lips.
“Hob!” I yelled, tossing a knife to the hearth brownie.
The blade was a sword in the tiny faerie’s hands, but he didn’t fumble. He ran up the ball pit stairs and I followed, pushing aside the ignorant humans who couldn’t see the monsters in their midst.
Foolish humans tricked by glamour could be amusing, but Ratfink was using the gifts of enslaved fae for his own profits. More than that, if the enormous tentacles were any indication, he had somehow captured an elder god and was offering it the city’s children as sacrifice, probably to provide the kind of spell that kept this place off the local Hunters’ Guild’s radar. There was no art to this con, no finesse. Just a rat with a festering heart and a greedy belly, made fat by the suffering of the Hill’s weak and less fortunate.
I climbed the stairs four at a time, my catlike reflexes always finding purchase in the small shadowed spaces between customers. At the top, chaos reigned.
Marvin was barreling parents over to save their children, pulling kids from the ball pit and pushing them away from the aquarium’s edge. Children cried and parents screamed, but they couldn’t see the hungry monster with its writhing tentacles and gaping maw. They treated Marvin as if he were the monster, ruining their family night.
I’d seen enough.
I dove into the pit, grabbed Sparky, plunking him on the astroturf-covered platform that surrounded the tank. The kid laughed, and I had to grin.
“You having fun?” I asked.
“Octopuuusss!” he squealed.
I shook my head, trying not to laugh.
“Leave the octopus to me,” I said. “I got a job for you, kid. Are you up to it?”
The demon tilted his head, one floppy ear covered in sauce that smelled suspiciously of oregano. He’d probably eaten an entire pizza while I’d been freeing faeries in the kitchen, and, judging from the sticky crust protruding from his pockets, had stashed away dessert for later.
“Job?” he asked.
“Go pull that fire alarm over there,” I said. “Then wait for me or Marvin or Hob. Don’t go back in the ball pit. Okay?”
Sparky nodded, but instead of pulling the fire alarm, he caught the nearest staff member on fire. That’d do. The wererat’s cheap polyester uniform went up in flames, and the fire alarm started to trill.
The humans stopped fighting Marvin and ran for the doors, but not every kid was out of the tank. A tentacle rose above the center of the tank, a little girl in its rubbery grip. The balls nearest me vibrated, scraping against each other as something enormous moved more fully into this world, displacing the balls and cracking the aquarium tank.
The elder god was hungry, so I filled him full of iron. With a claw and prayer, I tore a hole in the fabric of reality between the ball pit and the kitchen. A pile of cast off iron chains and shackles came tumbling into the creature’s maw.
With an ear-popping pressure change, I let go and let reality snap back into place. I’d have one hell of a headache tomorrow, and I’d be weak as a kitten for days, but the gambit worked. The tentacle loosened and I caught the falling girl. I was handing her to Marvin when a great gurgling began at my back.
Marvin’s eyes widened, and we ran. I grabbed Hob and Sparky, ignoring the brownie’s grumbled threats, and leapt down the stairs and across the gaming floor. Another gurgle rumbled and the entire building shook.
“Get down!” I shouted.
We dove for cover behind a line of arcade games, barely avoiding shards of glass and projectile gelatinous goo. The little girl squirmed out of Marvin’s arms and ran to a confused looking man standing by the exit. The two humans stumbled out the door, which just left us, the remaining staff, and the whirring arcade games splattered and dripping with pink and grey flesh.
I don’t think I’ll be getting that safety deposit back.
I wiped elder god from my shoulder, and grinned at my companions.
“Anyone want cotton candy?” I asked, spying the roller skating werepanda now working the cotton candy booth.
The candy was spun by spiderfae and was probably the safest thing to eat in a wererat’s establishment. Which was good since we each
ate three huge clusters of the stuff.
Sparky let out a happy burp, and I nudged him with my elbow.
“Let’s go hit the bouncy palace,” I said. “First one to puke gets to pick where we go next.”
Breaking Ratfink’s rules was fun. I should have come here ages ago. Pesky elder god and his illusion spells.
“Ye mean we’re not a goin’ back to the loft?” Hob asked.
“No way,” I said, leaning forward and rubbing my hands together.
When you’ve lived as long as I have, it’s hard to find anything new and interesting. But hanging with these kids? Saving helpless faeries from enslavement and sweatshop conditions? That was a whole new kind of mischief and mayhem, and we had all of Joysen Hill to tackle.
“We’re just getting started.”
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Ivy Granger Psychic Detective Box Set (Books 1-3, Bonus Prequel)
Want to read more of Ivy’s adventures?
The Ivy Granger Psychic Detective Box Set includes the novels SHADOW SIGHT, GHOST LIGHT, and BURNING BRIGHT for one low price.
Demons, ghosts, vampires, and necromancers—Ivy dodges the city's deadliest villains while solving its darkest cases. Will she save the day or die trying?
Order now to keep reading the Ivy Granger series.
Don’t miss these books set in the world of Ivy Granger.
Ivy Ganger, Psychic Detective Series
Shadow Sight
Welcome to Harborsmouth, where monsters walk the streets unseen by humans...except those with second sight, like Ivy Granger.
Blood and Mistletoe: An Ivy Granger Novella
Holidays are worse than a full moon for making people crazy. In Harborsmouth, where many of the residents are undead vampires or monstrous fae, the combination may prove deadly.
Ghost Light
Holidays are worse than a full moon for making people crazy. In Harborsmouth, where many of the residents are undead vampires or monstrous fae, the combination may prove deadly.
Club Nexus: An Ivy Granger Novella
A demon, an Unseelie faerie, and a vampire walk into a bar...
Burning Bright
Burning down the house...
Birthright
Being a faerie princess isn't all it's cracked up to be...
Hound’s Bite
Ivy Granger thought she left the worst of Mab's creations behind when she escaped Faerie. She thought wrong.
Hunters’ Guild Series
Hunting in Bruges
The only thing worse than being a Hunter in the fae-ridden city of Harborsmouth, is hunting vampires in Bruges.
Coming soon to the world of Ivy Granger
Blood Rite
Ivy Granger psychic detective takes on a simple grave robbing case, but in Harborsmouth nothing is ever simple when dealing with the dead.
Warning: This book features grave robbing, an abandoned amusement park, necromancy, and zombie clowns.
Watertight
When Torn is accused of murdering a local mermaid, Ivy Granger is plunged into the deep end of water fae politics.
With her psychic gifts and newfound wisp powers, locating Torn's alibi should be simple. Too bad a deadly enemy with a score to settle is lurking in Harborsmouth's darkest waters.
Ivy Granger might be in over her head. Even with the help of her kelpie king fiance, Ivy only has until the next high tide to prove Torn's innocence. With the clock counting down and the bodies piling up, Ivy better hope she finds an alibi that’s watertight.
Dressed in White
Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something blue...
On the eve of Jinx and Ivy's double wedding, a sinister figure is terrorizing Harborsmouth.
When reports of a homicidal jilted bride threaten their wedding plans, Ivy and Forneus set out to put a stop to the string of heinous acts. What they discover might just send the faerie and demon straight to Hell, and set Ivy on a path to rectify more than one evil deed.
Will Ivy tie the knot with her kelpie king, or will she be saying “I do” to the king of Hell? Her father's curse is on the line, and lives hang in the balance. No pressure.
Also by E.J. Stevens
Ivy Granger, Psychic Detective
Urban Fantasy Series
Shadow Sight
Blood and Mistletoe
Ghost Light
Club Nexus
Burning Bright
Birthright
Hound’s Bite
Tales from Harborsmouth
Hunters’ Guild
Urban Fantasy Series
Hunting in Bruges
Spirit Guide
Young Adult Series
She Smells the Dead
Spirit Storm
Legend of Witchtrot Road
Brush with Death
The Pirate Curse
Dark Poetry Collections
From the Shadows
Shadows of Myth and Legend
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About the Author
E.J. Stevens is the bestselling, award-winning author of the IVY GRANGER, PSYCHIC DETECTIVE urban fantasy series, the SPIRIT GUIDE young adult series, the HUNTERS' GUILD urban fantasy series, and the WHITECHAPEL PARANORMAL SOCIETY Victorian Gothic horror series. She is known for filling pages with quirky characters, bloodsucking vampires, psychotic faeries, and snarky, kick-butt heroines. Her novels are available worldwide in multiple languages.
BTS Red Carpet Award winner for Best Novel, Raven Award finalist for Best Urban Fantasy, SYAE finalist for Best Paranormal Series, Best Novella, and Best Horror, winner of the PRG Reviewer's Choice Award for Best Paranormal Fantasy Novel, Best Young Adult Paranormal Series, Best Urban Fantasy Novel, and finalist for Best Young Adult Paranormal Novel and Best Urban Fantasy Series.
When E.J. isn't at her writing desk, she enjoys dancing along seaside cliffs, singing in graveyards, and sleeping in faerie circles. E.J. currently resides in a magical forest on the coast of Maine where she finds daily inspiration for her writing.
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