8

Getting Kerath back upstairs and inside my apartment was rough work, but Agent Devereaux, despite her petite frame, was in much better shape than I was. I cleared the dinner table with a dish-scattering back arm sweep and laid him on top of it, just as the first sirens pulled into the parking lot.

Devereaux was frantic. “What do I tell them?”

I looked over Kerath’s wounds. I remembered stories of trollish regeneration, but his had only stabilized, not improved. I had to hope whatever vital force let him go toe to toe with a van would hold him a little longer. “Stick to the facts. A van charged us, tried to run us down, then it blew up.” I paused for a second. “Do we have to tell them anything?”

“I’m a federal agent, Fisher. I can’t just hide behind a Valente lawyer.”

I wanted to call Duchess right then, but I had no desire to explain to my boss why an FBI agent was making midnight house calls any more than Devereaux wanted to explain what a troll was. “Look, just tell them what you have to and keep them out of here. I’ve got to do something to save him.”

“Right.” She nodded, as if battlefield triage was an everyday thing. “But you owe me an explanation.” With that, she disappeared, closing the front door behind her.

Turning back to Kerath, I wondered what would happen if I let an Unseelie Ambassador die during a diplomatic meeting. I was certain the fae would want reparations far more dire than a single mortal child or a hundred years of slave labor. Again, I frantically whispered in the troll’s ear, “Sir Kerath, if you can hear me, I really need you to pull through this.”

His voice was raspy, as scorched as his skin. “Fairy...Get to…fairy ring.”

It made sense. He needed to get home. In the safety of Fairy, he could heal…but how? I wasn’t intimately familiar with any fairy rings in the area…or in the real world, period. Certainly, I believed such things existed, but...

“Quit thinking, start wizarding.”

“For once, you’re right.”

“How about twice? Who told you to run?”

“Okay, so what do I do?” I wondered.

“Get him back to Fairyland. If he dies there, it’s not on us.”

“And it might help heal him, too, right?”

“Sure…as if that were the important issue.”

I made a whirlwind tour of the lab, scooping up everything I could that I even vaguely thought would help. I had the permanent silver circle, but there was zero chance of me being able to get Kerath from my table to the circle without help. If a circle was needed, it would have to come to him. I grabbed a bag of sugar from the kitchen, tore open its top corner, and began pouring it in a clockwise ring around the dining table. It wasn’t a perfect circle, but it would have to do.

I stepped in and deposited my tools on one of the chairs. I noticed, with dismay, that I’d forgotten my athame.

“Whoa, whoa, shouldn’t we have a plan here?”

“You were the one who said to start wizarding. It’s a little late to pull back now.”

“I meant ’grab the Necronomicon and find a spell’, not ‘start slinging magic helter-skelter.’”

“No Necronomicon needed. I can do this. I’m a professional wizard, remember?”

I pulled the chaos blade from my pocket and willed it into the shape of a ritual dagger. From the inside of the circle, I paced the sugar ring, holding the blade tip over the circle, trying to visualize the whole process in my mind.

I felt the circle snap shut, sealing the magical energies inside with me and Kerath. I placed a half-eaten chocolate bar on his chest and laid both massive hands on top of it, one at a time. The wrapper stuck out from underneath like a lily in the grasp of a sleeping Snow White from a very fractured fairy tale. Hopefully, I wouldn’t have to kiss Kerath to save him.

I knelt into genuflection, still uncertain what I needed to do. I briefly prayed first, “God, I haven’t always been the best Catholic, but I could really use a little divine guidance right now. Help me know the right words to use.”

“And let’s be honest: YOU owe their kind for the whole Inquisition thing.”

I found myself humming a few bars from an old Mel Brooks movie, stopped myself in horror when I realized what it was, then started again as a plan began to hatch in my addled brain. The Inquisition had undoubtedly wiped out hundreds of fae living in mortal disguise, forced them back into Fairy, even as it had forced many Jewish families into hiding or conversion. But a little Jewish humor might just do the trick…I would just have to improvise a few lines at the end. I tried to picture Mel Brooks dressed as the Inquisitor Torquemada before breaking into full out song.

“The Inquisition, what a show!

The Inquisition, here we go!

The Inquisition, watch ‘em go!

We’re the Inquisition and we’re here to stay.

Oh, the Inquisition’s here and we’re here to stay!

Oh, the Inquisition’s here, but you’re not here to stay!

Oh, the Inquisition’s here, but you’re not here to stay!

Oh, the Inquisition’s here, but you’re not here to stay!”

I belted it out at full volume, including a dance number that I am glad there were no conscious witnesses of. If no one saw me doing chorus girl kicks, I could retain my wizardly dignity. I could feel the energy growing with each line and by the time I stopped singing, the air was thick with power…but Kerath was still lying on the table. My inner voice may have been right about needing a plan before starting to use magic at random, but I was trapped now.

As I breathed in the crackling, energetic air, I recalled that initial image of Mel Brooks as Torquemada. I tried to breathe that in, to let the Torquemada persona cover me, visualizing myself as the Spanish Grand Inquisitor. In my most solemn voice, I intoned, “Sir Kerath, by order of the Grand Inquisition, you are hereby banished to the Fairy realm for a term of no less than one day!” I slashed out behind me with the chaos blade, breaking the flow of the circle, visualizing it as a judge’s gavel banging down.

Something did bang down, with a knock-knock. The power rushed out of the circle, the rustling air momentarily blinding me. When I could see again, Kerath was gone…along with my dining table. The knock-knock came again and this time I placed it as coming from my front door.