Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale

by Tash, Red

  The period flew by, with our girls alternately roughing up Bleeding Heartland and then letting them score. It was a close game, and I was sent in to jam.

  There are many things I can’t recall from my days with the Godsmackers, but I will never forget the feeling of digging deep into my skates, bounding off the floor, fighting gravity as it pulled me sideways through the turns, before barreling through the waiting pack of rollergirls. The feeling of my teammates—of April—whipping me past the crowd, the wild speed threatening to topple me as I fought to stride into it, multiplying it into the sheer bliss of infinity.

  The hardest part wasn’t avoiding the hits. I actually enjoyed those—the jarring feeling of another body slamming into mine, banging my ribcage, thumping my hips. I also loved the challenge of avoiding everyone’s skates—tippy-toeing through the pack—that was unbelievably fun.

  No, the hard part for me was holding my arms in as close as I could to avoid getting a penalty. My pesky elbows just didn’t want to stay in. And worse than that, my wings got in the way. I could never take my mind off them, lest they reveal themselves.

  I don’t know how many times I jammed during the bout. I don’t know if I was lead jammer, or how many points I scored. I’d been the Mayor of Blurville for so long, what did it matter? All I knew was I was born for this sport. This was my moment.

  Near the end of the second period, a spectator threw herself onto the track and straight into me. I rolled over her fingers and tripped. I was sure I’d broken some of her bones on the way down.

  She lay on the floor, an old woman in a bright red silk robe printed with purple paisleys. “Debra,” she said. “Help me up.”

  Her neck was cocked awkwardly to one side, and Jag was pointing to her from the sidelines, screaming something to his henchmen. I scrambled to my feet, not sure what to do, but instinctively feeling the need to catch up with the pack at all costs.

  “Debra!” she screamed. The ref’s whistles blew, and humans and trolls in heavy glamour rushed the floor, first aid kits on deck. I turned to skate back to our bench, but I felt a hand pulling on my shirt. That was the first time I was aware that I wore a team jersey, not just a glamour.

  “Debra, return to Harlow,” she said. Her voice was muffled by the crowd of people encircling her on the floor, but her thick accent seemed so familiar. “Darling, do you hear me? Listen to Zelda. Return to Harlow and—”

  But then she was gone. A flurry of purple paisley and red silk, and a brief memory of the woman’s bony fingers tracing the palm of my hand—and then nothing.

  Chapter 33.5

  Abdication

  Harlow

  They weren’t taking any chances. When I came to, I was tied with my own belt, and my dad wore my mojo sack around his own neck.

  “That’s wrong,” I said. My throat was dry and scratchy, my voice cracking. “I want my sack back.” I pulled against the restraints on my wrist, as I surveyed the situation. The smuggled bow was crushed, and my iron arrows lay neatly beside it on the floor, behind the straw pile.

  “Look, son,” Othello said. “I understand you are upset. We’re all upset—well, at least we’ve all been there. And I can tell by the weight of what’s in this pack that you’ve got a lot riding on you, son. I’ve never felt such heavy teeth.” He made as if to open the sack.

  “Don’t you dare!” I said.

  John and Max held me down by the shoulders. They were surprisingly strong, for their weakened state. I guess living inside the walls of a troll dungeon isn’t as hard on the physique as one would think.

  “Okay, okay,” dad said. “I won’t get into your stuff. The only reason we removed your weaponry was so you could lie more comfortably.” Dad paced the room, then dropped the mojo sack gently onto my chest, where it belonged. He took a deep breath, then said, “Here’s what we’re going to do, Harlow. I’m going to finish telling you what I know, and then we’ll let you out of your bonds. If you still want to tear me limb-from-limb, so be it. If you decide otherwise, we’re with you all the way. Okay?”

  I didn’t see as I had any choice. I managed to pull myself up into a sitting position, which was difficult to do without hands, but much more comfortable than lying on my stiff back. “Start talking, Pops.”

  He sat on the floor cross-legged next to me, and my friends—or former friends, whatever they were—drifted to the edges of the room to give us space again.

  “Harlow, despite what you think of me, I did what I did, and it can’t be undone now. There’s no way to go back. Someday hopefully you will understand—your mother and I made our choices to protect the ones we loved. She was smarter than me, is all. If I’d have been a faster thinker, I’d have offered myself in her stead, but your mother was always a step ahead of me. If it weren’t for you, and my desire to protect you, Jag would’ve gotten to me years ago. But I did enchant you, because I knew it would keep you alive. Jag lives in fear that you’ll wake up from the spells and decide to reclaim your birthright.”

  “My birthright?”

  “The throne, dummy. My throne. Well, what was supposed to have been my throne. The birthright reverts to you, unless you abdicate, like I did. Technically, you’re the rightful king of this realm.”

  “Whatever,” I said. “What’s that matter, anyway?” But deep down, I knew what he was going to say next.

  “It matters a lot, Harlow. There’s a lot of magic that goes along with being a troll king—or deposing one. If you challenge Jag for the throne and win, there’s almost nothing that’s outside your grasp.”

  “That’s all well and good, Dad, but what if I don’t want to be king?”

  Dad paused for breath, and Holly groaned across the room.

  “What?” I said.

  “Don’t you get it, you dummy?” she said. “You aren’t going to have any choice!”

  Othello shot her a look of annoyance, and she shrugged and put her hands on her hips.

  “Just tell him, O,” she said.

  He took a deep breath, sighing in exasperation. “Okay, fine, fine!” With tears in his eyes, he placed his hands on my shoulders. “It’s either you or Deb, son. Jag’s going to make you choose.”

  “Choose what? Who stays? Who goes? I’ll gladly stay here if it means she goes free.”

  The old man laughed. “Oh, no, son. There’s a prophecy about this—greatest secret ever kept from Jag, more than likely. We’re all getting out of here, the entire dungeon lot. And you’re leading the charge. You can try and change it, but there’s going to be a major jailbreak soon—and the choice will be up to you. Somehow or another, Jag is going to make you choose—Deb’s life, or your own.”

  “This prophecy stuff is bullshit! I have survived plenty of time without worrying about anyone’s prophecies, and I’m not going to start buying into this prison mythology today, Pops. Sorry, but no thanks.”

  Othello just smiled. Bless the son of a bitch, but he smiled at me.

  “Son, have you heard what I’ve been telling you? Believe me, please—if there were any way this could not be true, I would tell you. Some things, though, are written in the stone tablets of time. You can’t change them—but if you know about them, Harlow, you can use them.”

  I considered what he’d said.

  I took a deep breath. “So, you’re telling me that we have knowledge that Jag doesn’t?”

  “Correct, son.”

  “Just like he knew something about me that I didn’t?”

  “Well, about Debra, he did,” Othello said.

  “Debra is my wife, Dad,” I said. “That makes us one and the same, for better or for worse. And, frankly, I’ve let Jag keep her long enough.”

  I was so thirsty, but there was nothing to eat or drink in the cell. My throat was blazing hot, scratchy. I thought of Biggie Smalls and felt myself warm from the inside out, felt the dungeon cell heat around me.

  Then I realized—if Biggie’s magic could do what I thought, perhaps all wasn’t lost, just yet. I leaned back
and closed my eyes, and envisioned magic I’d never seen before.

  “What’s going on, son?”

  I was too busy concentrating to answer.

  “Harlow? Buddy?” It was Holly, forlorn and confused.

  And then I felt it. The warm sprinkle of rain, barely landing on my face before it disappeared. I raised my hand to my face, and water shot out my fingers, cold and pure as springwater.

  I opened my eyes.

  “Guards!” I yelled. “Guards! I want to see Jag, now!”

  Chapter Thirty-Four

  The Dream Police

  Deb

  April walked me back to the bench, and when I sat, I felt blood rushing to my mouth.

  “Baby, are you okay?” she asked.

  I opened my mouth to speak, and spit a mouthful of blood, instead. The sockets Harlow had opened when he took my teeth were gushing. Harlow.

  I gagged, and then I must have fainted. The next thing I knew, I was on the bus, April’s arms around me.

  “What were you dreaming about, honey?” April’s voice purred in my ear. “That stupid gypsy again? You want a drink?” She reached for a bottle of spiced rum and tilted it to my lips. It stung my throat, and my heart filled with an urgency to keep April with me, no matter what the cost.

  “Did we win?” I asked.

  She smirked. “Of course we won. Well—Daddy did, anyway. That’s what counts.” She reached down and brushed something from her shirt. It was reddish brown, flaky.

  “Is that blood?”

  She laughed again. “Yeah. Yours.” She took a thick swallow of the rum and offered the bottle to me again. I shook my head. “And maybe a little of the kid’s.” She jerked her head pointedly toward the seat behind us.

  I sat up, but it hurt. I was sore as hell, and I wasn’t clear whether I’d hurt myself from the bout, or if this was just how it felt after skating so hard, with such intensity. Maybe it was the blood loss, maybe it was the rum, but I was so dizzy, the bus seemed to sway and rock like it might flip. Finally, I managed to turn my body all the way around.

  Derek sat behind us, his eyes glued to the ceiling.

  “Derek!” I said. He didn’t look at me. “Derek! Snap out of it!” He grinned at me—a silly, spacey grin.

  April erupted into laughter. “It never gets old,” she said. She took a small digital camera out of her jacket and snapped his photo. “Look, look,” she said, holding the camera in front of my face. Then she mocked him, making a face just like his. “It’s the faeth,” she said. “Makes asses of them all.”

  “Faith?” I said.

  “Fae meth,” she said. “Faeth. It was originally for High Fae only—not even trolls, but Daddy finally figured out how to cut it weak enough that even the English could use it without killing themselves. Found out the hard way that giving it to them full strength only killed off his customer base.” She laughed again, and took another drink. “Whatever. Business schmizness. Come here, bitch.” She gestured to me, like she wanted me to climb onto her lap.

  I shook my head. “Too tired,” I said.

  My jaw ached, and again I thought of Harlow. I wondered where he was, whether it was so smart of me to have left him at all. I’d been so afraid of him, unable to trust him, but yet here I’d ended up with a woman whose father was a some kind of Troll Mafia Don.

  I’d been skating, I’d been distracted. I’d fallen for April without realizing that as beautiful as she was on the outside, she was terrifically ugly on the inside. I’d fallen in love with roller derby—fairy rules, banked track, flat-track, no difference.

  And worst of all, I’d forgotten about my sister. Was she lying somewhere zonked out of her mind on faeth? I didn’t really give a crap about seeing Mom again, but Gennifer was innocent in all of this—it was if she were some kind of bait Jag was using to lure me into a trap.

  I guess I was silent too long, because April sighed and stuck her tongue out at me. “You’re no fun,” she said, before hopping over the back of the seat to show her photos to the girls. Peals of laughter erupted and I cringed at the sound of April’s cruel voice. My mouth filled with blood again and I spit it onto the floor. How could I not have seen her for what she was?

  We were back at the Bingo Hall in moments, the clumsy bus rocking to a stop. April crashed into me, her arms around Juwanna Kiss. Juwanna laughed throatily, and April pushed her camera and helmet into my arms.

  “Take these back to my room, bitch,” she said, still laughing. She was completely drunk. For a second I felt jealous, then disgusted—not just with her, but with myself. How could I have fallen so hard for this creep in glitter and spandex?

  “Sure thing,” I said. I averted my eyes.

  I wanted to throw her stuff right back at her, but I realized it probably wasn’t the time for an outburst. I was tired, beat up from the bout, and I had the uneasy feeling that I was waking up from some kind of trance. The last thing I wanted was for April to feed me more of whatever she’d hooked me on.

  I had no idea how long I’d been lost in her crazy world of roller derby, gambling, and feed store merchandise, but I knew that I didn’t have any time to waste if I was going to save Gennifer and get back to … Who was I getting back to, exactly? Me, I guess. My own life. A life away from her.

  I pocketed the camera and caught Derek as he stumbled from the bus. “Easy, buddy,” I said. He made eye contact with me and burst into silent tears. They’d probably have eaten him alive if they’d heard him crying. Poor Derek. God only knew what he’d been through.

  Suddenly I felt more lucid than I had in ages. How long had I been with the Godsmackers? Weeks? Months? I didn’t know. But I was done.

  Derek was thin as a pencil from head to toe. I wondered if they’d fed him anything but faeth. He stumbled at my side until we reached my room. I expected April to join me any minute, but I began to wonder if that was really how it had been. Had we been together at all? A few nights, I was sure—but there was no telling. My memories were a fog and she seemed to have rounds to make among the other girls on the team. My heart both longed for her and ached for its own stupidity, at the same time.

  I closed the door behind us and after I deposited Derek on my small bed, I shoved my trunk of roller derby gear in front of the door. April must have given me a dozen pair of skates, and the trunk was extremely heavy. Funny—for some reason I’d stuck to the skates Coach had given me. Coach. I’d let him down, too.

  For some reason, I was pretty sure she wasn’t coming back to my room that night—but just in case, I didn’t want to be caught. Maybe that trunk wouldn’t stop her from coming in for long, but that extra few seconds could buy me time to figure something out, right?

  Derek was comfortable enough, dozing on my pillow. I didn’t even stop to take off my nasty clothes—I just pulled the digital camera from my pocket and flipped through the photos April had taken.

  The zombie photo of Derek staring into the ceiling of the bus was preceed by an entire photo shoot of me. I scrolled through them in backward order.

  In the first photo I was completely passed out, and April posed suggestively with me. My mouth was hanging open, just like Derek’s had been. Is this what her drugs were doing to me? Something hung from my mouth, and a hand pointed to it. A hand wearing a skull ring, silver with ruby eyes.

  I felt sick.

  Another photo. April looking over her shoulder, laughing. She stood inside a bathroom stall. Was this at the bout? I didn’t remember going to the bathroom there.

  Another photo. April supporting me, my face awash in stupor, and Juwanna Kiss holding me up on the other side. I wondered who took the photo.

  Another photo. April posing next to the tampon dispenser.

  Suddenly I felt so sick, I threw up. The closest receptacle was April’s helmet, but I didn’t care. She didn’t deserve my care.

  “I’m sorry, Deb.” Derek’s voice was weak. “I didn’t want to take those photos. I asked them to stop, but they don’t listen to me.” He b
urst into tears, burying his face into the pillow. “I want to go home,” he said, his muffled sobs barely understandable. “I want my mom.”

  Mom. Not the person I wanted to see, necessarily, but someone I thought owed me answers. I was going to get those answers, and be done with her, if it was the last thing I did. “Do you know where Gennifer is?” I said.

  “I do,” he said. “I did, anyway. They move her.”

  “They move her around the casino?”

  He nodded, wiping tears away.

  “We’ve got to get her out of here, Derek. If April did this to me, what are they doing to Gennifer?” I fought it, but finally, I cried—for the first time in months, maybe in years, I cried. I tried to keep it quiet—the last thing I needed was for someone to hear me, for April to find out I knew what she was doing to me.

  “We’ll never get out of here, Deb. You’re a Wheeler. They’re going to use you until they’re done with you, then they’re going to kill you. They can’t afford to let you out of here alive … and I am worthless.” Derek looked like he had aged twenty years, his sad face utterly hopeless.

  “We’ll see about that,” I said. I picked the camera up and flipped through the rest of the photos. More of me, more of Derek, and then the very last—the first one April had taken—was of Gennifer.

  She lay still as a corpse on a pristine bed. A green satin comforter spread out beneath her, and she grasped a single lily in her hands. She looked like a stiff fresh from the funeral home.

  “Sleeping Beauty,” Derek said. “That’s what they call her.”

  “Do you know where she is now?” I asked.

  “This place is a labyrinth, Deb,” Derek said. “They move her around—I think they’re afraid someone will find her. I think they’re afraid you’ll find her. You’re her Protector, you know. McJagger ordained it, himself. He can’t break the spell, but he can keep you from finding her for as long as he can.”

  “You’re speaking mumbo jumbo. What happens when I find her?”