Troll Or Derby, A Fairy Wicked Tale

by Tash, Red

  Derek shrugged and huddled deeper into the bed. “Don’t know,” he said. “I’ve only picked up bits and pieces—but it must be important to them that you don’t ever take her back to her mom. They talk about it often enough.”

  “They?” I asked.

  “McJagger, Dave, and April,” he said. “The three in charge.”

  Chapter 34.5

  Take Me to the River

  Harlow

  “I understand you wanted to see me,” Jag said. He leaned casually against the wall next to the grate that separated us, lazily picking his teeth with a pixie bone.

  “Yeah,” I said. “Thanks for taking care of my dad all these years.” I nodded Dad’s direction.

  Jag laughed. “No sweat, nephew. I may be a lot of things, but stupid’s not one of them. If your daddy didn’t wanna be king, no biggie—but I wasn’t about to let the best remote enchanter just get away. Not when I could use him here, to keep an eye on … well, on my enemies.”

  “It’s okay, Jag. I know you used my dad to put spells on me. But that was a waste of time. I’m not interested in ruling any kingdoms, either.”

  “Well, that’s a relief,” he said sarcastically, then he laughed hard in that ridiculous guffaw again. “So, I guess you think I’ll just let you two go now, on your word, huh?”

  “The two of us?” I said. “No.”

  “No?” he asked.

  “The whole band’s coming with me, Jag,” I said. He looked at me in shock for a moment, but I didn’t want him to feel threatened. That was not part of my plan, at all. “Look, Jag, remember the band?” I turned and gestured at my friends—what was left of them. “We’ll make you a deal—let us out, and we’ll play a concert for your English quarry, how about that? Remember how the crowd just went wild for us, back in the day?”

  Jag seemed to consider the proposition. I wondered if visions of severed arms danced in his head.

  “Okay, Harlow. You want to play? I’ll bring you and your band upstairs. But I’ve got a band myself, you know. The English are accustomed to good music now. I’m not so sure they’ll go for your rusty old jam.”

  I shrugged, and shoved my hands in my pockets. “We’ll just have to see about that, huh?”

  “Tell you what, nephew,” Jag said, removing his pixiepick and throwing it casually onto the floor. “We’ll let the crowd decide. If you win, I’ll let you, your dad, and all your band go. That’s how sure I am that you suck. Hell, the crowd’ll eat you alive before you get through the first set.” He chuckled and turned to walk away.

  “And what if we lose?” I called to him.

  He stopped in his tracks, his bony hands in the back pockets of his black leather pants. He looked over his shoulder at me, his thin face betraying the shadow of the skull beneath, already.

  “If you win—and you won’t, Harlow, you won’t—everything you want is yours. Your freedom, your dad, your girl, take it all. I don’t care.” He approached the grate again, and this time, he closed his hands on top of mine, before I could pull them away. I could feel the cold current of his evil blood coursing through his spindly veins. “But when you lose, I will cut out the heart of the one you love, and you can watch me eat it with my bare hands.”

  Chapter Thirty-Five

  Black Magic Woman

  Deb

  I spent the next few days in quiet supplication, trying my best to pretend I was still under April’s spell, and fearful the entire time that she would realize I wasn’t. I don’t know if it was seeing the photos she’d snapped of me that had truly woken me up, or bumping into Madame Zelda at the bout, or what—but the spell seemed to have completely broken.

  I stopped drinking the water. The Croaks seemed to be fine, though.

  Derek drifted in and out of sentient conversation, and I was careful to watch my words in front of him. I couldn’t be sure that he wasn’t spying for one of his masters. Dave ran his hands over me constantly, seeming to half feel me up, half perform a weapons search. I tried not to grit my teeth.

  I listened for clues to my sister’s whereabouts. I tried to figure out what my next move should be. Seek out Madame Zelda? Return home to Mom and ask for more information? My inner voice told me to seek out Harlow, but I wasn’t sure if I even could, and my shame was probably outweighing my logic. I felt that I could trust him, but I wasn’t willing to go crawling back to him after I’d strayed so far from his side. The whole situation with him was confusing—I didn’t want to be bonded to him, and yet I wished more than anything for his help.

  The team practiced intently over the next week or so. Our endurance drills had become nothing to me. No matter how hard we pushed, I was never at the peak of my abilities—that was when I began to understand what made me different from the other girls. As far as fairies went, there was nothing dainty about me. I was as tough to knock over as one of the troll girls, but my strength and endurance was even greater.

  I don’t know how long I was with the Godsmackers, but it was long enough for my body to change considerably. I was still not very girly, my tomboy frame just a part of my DNA. But nothing hurt, nothing was sore, even when the other girls complained. I felt stronger than I ever had, and it was a good thing, mentally, too, because avoiding the faeth was a full-time job.

  Glamouring my own food to switch with whatever April tried to feed me was working for now, but how long would that last? I was drinking so many Croaks, I felt like I could speak in belches, maybe even bullfrogese.

  I had to make a decision and find a way to escape the Bingo Hall before the Unholy Triumvirate figured me out. I wanted to take Gennifer with me—needed to rescue her—but I might be able to do a better job of that if I actually left the fairy court, first.

  I was considering my options when April came for me. I let her lead me through the corridors of the complex to an enormous underground auditorium. Jag awaited us in the threshold. He took my left arm, April led me from my right, and Dave walked with his arm around April’s neck. If it hadn’t been so much like a hostage situation, we’d have looked like a particularly rough biker family, I supposed. I tried not to smile at the insanity of my being related to any of these trolls.

  I wanted to ask where we were going, but I kept my mouth shut. Drugged slaves ask no questions and tell no tales, and I was still pretending to be the blissfully stupid young girl they’d tricked into captivity. The sound of a crowd swept in like a rushing river behind me, and I turned my head to see a throng of revelers behind us, a mix of human and fae.

  “Harlow!” a young woman breathed, as she trotted impatiently behind me in the line that was filing into the theatre. It was all I could do to keep from whipping my head around and asking her if she’d said what I thought she had. Harlow? Was he here? Why would he be in the auditorium? My mind instantly jumped to the worst possible scenario—there was to be a public execution. Or had he turned to Dave’s side? When I thought about him rescuing me, I felt my mouth fill with blood again, and I swallowed it as quickly as I could, hoping not to attract any attention.

  Jag and April and Dave led me to their private box, front-row balcony center. A banner hung across the blood-stained stage below. “Welcome Home Harlow Saarkenner,” it read.

  Welcome home?

  Chapter 35.5

  Battle of the Bands

  Harlow

  “It’s a bad idea, son!” Othello’s words echoed behind me as the Rhinomen led us out of the dungeon, leaving him behind.

  “I’ll be back for you!” I called, although we were so deep in the maze that I didn’t know if he could hear.

  The prisoners surrounded us like a tide of grey, dirty filth, a moving mass of stink with many eyes. Some hissed at us, but most were just still, in shock or confusion. I was supposed to lead these people to freedom? They repulsed me, and I didn’t want to be saddled with whatever they might do once they got their way on the surface. I wasn’t sure that was a kindness, truth be told.

  “Prophecy schmoffesy,” I said.

>   “Shut it!” yapped one of the Rhinomen, striking me on the head with his spear.

  We emerged from the dungeon air into the stale, cigarette smoke and sweet burning faeth of the Bingo Hall. I considered making a break for it, but when I turned and saw Holly’s eyes squinting in the bright lights, bravely stepping toward the crowd, I knew I couldn’t leave the band behind.

  I was just going to have to figure out what magic I could summon to carry us through this contest, and fast. After all these years thinking my father had taught me all he could before Jag had him killed, I now realized I had only known a candlelight’s measure of magic, from a man who lit a bonfire. If we got out of here alive, I was going to wring him for every spell he knew.

  I was just going to have to summon that Thunderbird power and do the best I could, because there were now so many people depending on me that I couldn’t afford to fail.

  The auditorium loomed enormous before us, as the Rhinomen speared us up the back steps. The Eerie. A cloud of vapor hovered in the distance, black in the underground, moonless night. It was a crypt where music played to masses of the dead, and McJagger was their desolate pharaoh, a walking mummified king. I remembered it well.

  We stepped out onto the dirty stage, what was once polished hardwood now worn and splintery beneath our feet. I remembered the rivers of blood that washed over it in the years that I’d played this stage, and tried not to think of the body count.

  “What, no dressing rooms?” Holly sneered.

  “I need a place to get my glamour on,” said John. “And steelwater, and a bowl of green M&Ms.” The rest of the band snickered.

  They were joking, but they’d been here before, of course, as well. I’d just led them out of the frying pan and placed them lovingly into the fire.

  The Rhinomen grunted and retreated to the edges of the stage.

  “Are you at least going to untie us?” Harry asked. “Hard to play drums with no hands.”

  “When Jag says,” one guard grunted in response.

  The auditorium was exactly as I remembered it. More than cavernous, it truly was an underground arena. The Eerie was the venue to play in the Midwest—if you could book it. English bands whispered about it in backrooms, and most didn’t even believe it existed. The Legendary Eerie, some called it, or just The Legend.

  The truth was, of course, that none would play there if they knew the price.

  The stage sloped gently downward toward what used to be an orchestra pit—but was now a nightmare of mosh. Between the wooden floor and the limelights on the rim of the stage, enormous rusted metal grates were inlaid. The average English might theorize that the grates were there to wash away the water from the underground cave system, and in a sense, he’d be on the right track. Once he’d witnessed the beheadings of the losing band, he’d have gotten the rest of the story.

  Beneath the grate waited the watching eyes of more unwashed prisoners. I didn’t want to feed them. Not my flesh, not some poor one-hit-wonder band from the hair metal days, either.

  More than one poor fool had fought for his life axe-to-axe on this stage, puny guitars versus real battleaxes; spindly drumsticks snapping against severed legs.

  The roar of the crowd entering The Eerie rang out like the call of a long-forgotten nightmare. They trickled and scurried like an underground river, pouring in to what was left of the seats. Standing, tiptoeing, and flying a bit. Three purple fairies rode in on a black unicorn, a trail of sparkling pixie dust and faeth in their wake.

  There were so many English, it was nearly a 50-50 mix. I wondered how much faeth had been consumed by this horde—how big Jag’s operation must have grown, to support such an empire of dread.

  But I didn’t have time to wonder long.

  Jag waved to us from his box in the balcony, and the Rhinomen cut our bonds.

  “It’s time to put on makeup!” he called. “Time to light the lights!”

  A glamour not of our making came crashing onto us like thick, hot glue, and then it crystallized—heavy, but malleable. I looked down at my hands and limbs, and though they felt no different to me, I was as lithe as any road-worn aging rocker. I shook my head and could almost feel the long, frizzy hair tickle the back of my neck.

  Jag truly had me at every disadvantage. If I couldn’t even use my own glamour, I wasn’t sure I could charm the crowd at all. What could I do, besides sing the best show of my life? It might well be my last.

  And then the spotlight that’d been focused on Jag pitched to the right, and I saw her.

  Deb, her eyes blazing, her hulking black wings fully extended and ominous, a grimace of tight, pointed teeth on her lovely face.

  I felt the molars rattle inside my mojo, and knew all wasn’t lost.

  Not yet.

  Chapter Thirty-Six

  My First Concert

  Deb

  There he was. My guy.

  Which is not to say he was my guy or anything—more like a guy, but more than just a guy—a friend. My friend. My friendly troll. Whatever, you get it—Harlow!

  The feelings that overtook me, seeing him hostage on the stage like that— they were much worse than the panic I felt in losing Gennifer, worse than the disappointment over Mom throwing me out, and more powerful than the kick in the gut when I’d seen in the photos what April was doing to me.

  I felt myself clinch, and something was cutting my bottom lip. I put my hand to my mouth, and when I pulled my fingers away, they were bloody. When I put my hand back, I felt my teeth, so sharp and pointy, like those horrifying fae I’d seen ferociously tearing one another apart on the floor of the casino, or flashing scary smiles at the girls on the roller derby track.

  They were cutting Harlow’s bonds, which was good, because if they hadn’t, I was likely to jump the balcony and tear them off, myself. Why did I feel so tied to him, as if I were watching my own body be manhandled on stage? So bizarre. It had to have been some kind of magic—but magic was something I admittedly didn’t understand much about.

  He saw me, and for a moment that feeling of warm sunlight I’d first experienced at the Rustic Fog filled me again. Sunlight, followed by … was it rain? I thought I could hear the low rumble of distant thunder, but we were indoors—no, underground, right? Was it possible this cave was large enough to host an underground thunderstorm?

  I didn’t have time to think about it. Dave had let go of me for a few minutes, and now it was Jag’s turn to hook his arm around my neck, jerking me around like a pet.

  “April, are you sure she’s still on board?” he asked. He was speaking to his daughter, but looking at me, hard in the eye.

  If she answered, I didn’t hear. I couldn’t hear.

  Harlow and a ragged band of what looked like dirty dishcloths with arms & legs were pushed to the side of the stage, and The Phalaxis bounded out, all flash and bang. Pyrotechnics shot off as the drummer climbed onto the drum set, a giant structure of bone. The mad glee in the eyes of all the band told me they were either high on the attention, or they’d been given faeth before the show. Probably both.

  They started into their one and only hit, “Chainsaw Love.” The crowd thrummed and moved like a giant organism, with many arms and legs, and a million eyes, its hungry mouths bleating for more. It was nothing like the John Michael Montgomery show Mom had let Gennifer and me go to last summer at the Laurents County Fair.

  They did another song, but it wasn’t one I knew, and the crowd didn’t approve. Seems there’s a time and a place for original music, but a Battle of the Bands in front of hungry trolls wasn’t that place. Some of the bigger, dumber-looking trolls pushed their way to the front of the crowd, and reached onto the stage. The singer backed away in the nick of time, but a scrappy fairy, thin, with broken wings had jumped the stage, and was pushing the bassist into Harlow and his friends.

  I tried not to tense, but there was no hiding it. My wings quivered with anger, and I could feel blood pouring down my chin as my fangs pierced my face. More of the crowd ha
d taken the stage, and Harlow and his bandmates were cornered, two Rhinomen behind them, barring the exit. The Phalaxis’s drummer was picked up and thrown off the drum set, and the crowd was chanting now. “Fight! Fight! Fight! Fight!”

  Harlow grabbed The Phalaxis’s singer, and I saw him speaking directly into his ear. Was he trying to help him?

  “Silence.” Jag’s voice echoed, reverberating inside my head, and seemingly inside the heads of others, simultaneously. He wasn’t shouting—there was no need. Only the sound of the unicorn squealing broke the silence in The Eerie at that moment. Someone had tied the poor thing to a stalagmite near the stage, and he was terrified. The word “Virgin” was scrawled on his hide in white paint, like some cryptic graffiti.

  “You know what we expect, gentlemen. And lady.” Jag’s voice was patient. “Harlow, you may explain the price of failure to our musical guests.”

  But if Harlow had a mind to work something peaceful out with The Phalaxis, he never got a chance to explain. The drummer’s blood-curdling scream as he launched himself, bone-in-hand, from the drum platform onto one of Harlow’s bandmates—a small but tough-looking girl—ignited the crowd once again.

  “Fight! Blood! Fight! Blood! Kill! Kill! Kill!” They repeated the chant, and the magic it wove was visible, a blood-red cloud hovering over the stage, circling like a tornado of hatred. Harlow was holding The Phalaxis’s drummer with one hand, while the girl—who I saw now was actually a very angry troll—gnashed broken tusks in his general direction.

  His arms spread wide apart, Harlow threw back his head and over the roar of the crowd, into the face of the blood-red clouds, he did the impossible.

  He sang.

  Chapter 36.5

  I Wanna Rock

  Harlow

  “Biggie don’t fail me now,” I whispered, and then I threw my head back, closed my eyes, and believed.