Gabe Martinez wasn’t sure when the kelpie turned into a stallion. He wasn’t sure how he or Sophie got onto his back, either, or how the sword had gotten all tangled up with the leather and rings of the kelpie’s bridle.
Ranger had touched the sword and a wave had blasted off it like a big thick-walled bubble. Then they were moving, even though they weren’t—like Ranger and the sword had loaded the van, and the floor, and the garage door, and the snowblower all on a flatbed truck like the ones they use to film actors driving cars. It was all fake. Moving, yet not, and someone else was in control.
It wasn’t Ranger, either. Or the sword. Then Gabe blinked and they weren’t in the van anymore. They were on Ranger’s back galloping toward the coast and the beach and the sand.
Sophia held tight to Gabe’s waist. She buried her face in his t-shirt and mumbled things he couldn’t hear. The sword glowed in real, visible light. Gabe coiled Ranger’s mane around his hands and held on with all his strength, and prayed his sister would do the same.
He’d promised Momma he’d keep her safe.
Ranger dropped into a trot and picked his way down the grass-covered slopes to the sands of a beach. The moon shimmered just above the horizon and cast a long trail of silver over the ocean. Waves lapped on the beach. Something howled in the distance. And two bubbles of town light glowed not too far away—the closer of the two to the north and the larger, more distant, glow to the south.
Gabe had no idea where they were other than on a beach someplace a lot warmer than Minnesota. It could be California, or Florida, or somewhere in South America, for all he knew. But he didn’t think so.
“South Texas,” Sophia said.
They were on the Gulf Coast. The glow to the north was probably South Padre Island.
“The ocean stinks,” Sophia said.
The Gulf of Mexico smelled pretty much the same as the California beaches—sandy and sour and like water you should never drink. Some people liked the smell, but Gabe found it gross. Lake Superior smelled big and full of living things, too, except Lake Superior didn’t smell like someone had left a salted dead turtle to rot in the sun.
Maybe the stink wasn’t the water. Maybe it was the kelpie.
“Ranger smells like a dead seahorse,” Sophie said.
Between the s at the start of “seahorse” and the s at the end, they dropped from the back of a huge stallion onto their butts in the sand.
Ranger, now back in his black kilt and with the sword in his hand, stood over them. “I smell like my loch, missy,” he drawled. “Love ye too, by the bye.” He squatted and peered at both of them as if to check that they were still pristine and tasty for the vampires. “Either o’ ye move an inch an’ I’ll slice you up, aye?”
Sophia leaned toward him. “Tell the truth, Ranger,” she said.
He sighed and rubbed at his face with his free hand. Then he looked over his shoulder at the glow that had to be South Padre Island. “Th’ vampires will be here soon.” He nodded toward the brush in the direction they’d ridden in from. “They watch for activity at tha’ Heartway gate. They ken somethin’ yummy’s come through for their wee appetites.” He frowned. “Children are a delicacy, it seems. ‘Nother reason they like bein’ this close t’ the border.” He nodded south. Then he groaned. “I should send ye in wi’ th’ sword an’ instructions on how t’ make it go boom again.”
Gabe opened his mouth to ask about the sword, but Sophia touched his arm and shook her head. She wanted Ranger to talk.
“So ye think I’m gonnae do th’ villain monologue thing? Tell ye my plans, is that it?” He rubbed his face again. “Should be obvious to ye two, bein’ th’ smartlings ye are.”
“Trading us won’t save your life,” Sophia said.
He chuckled.
“Why didn’t you go home?” Gabe asked. “You could have, right? When you brought us here through that gate? Why didn’t you leave us behind and vanish?” He was selfish enough.
Ranger stood and looked back at the island. “I broke th’ Queen’s code,” he said. “Me an’ my two brothers, we left th’ stables durin’ th’ ruckus, an’ instead of respondin’ t’ th’ Queen’s call, we visited th’ King’s castle.” He rubbed his face again. “My brothers would do anythin’ I told ‘em to do.” He sniffed and snorted. “Not too bright, those two.”
“You’re the smart one,” Sophia said.
Gone was the defiance she’d had when she’d called him a moron back at the house, like she actually meant what she said. Ranger was the “smart one” in all this.
He laughed. “I’m th’ old one.” He looked Gabe over. “I’m gonnae give ye a boon, my intelligent young friend.”
Gabe raised his hands. “No deals!”
Ranger’s eyes narrowed. “A boon is freely given. If ye dinnae want it, that’s yer problem.” He nodded toward Sophia. “I’ll give it to Miss Ne’er-the-oracle over here instead.”
“We decline all gifts from the fae!” Gabe said. He didn’t want to come out of this owing a kelpie a favor. If they survived.
“There aren’t that many o’ us left.” Ranger ignored Gabe and tapped his chest. “Us kelpies. We… fell out o’ favor. Now we all live in th’ Queen’s stables.” He sighed. “No matter how any o’ us bluster about how we’re gonnae take yer lakes, we cannae. King’s orders.” He rubbed his forehead this time. “I hope the Queen shows my brothers mercy.” He looked down at Sophia as if asking her for confirmation.
“I’m not an oracle,” she said.
He rubbed the tip of his nose. “No, ye aren’t, are ye? But ye know who is.”
“Yes,” she said.
He nodded. “Tell her I tried.”
“I will.”
He nodded again. “Goin’ home isnae an option, nae when I’m wanted by th’ Royal Guard for crimes against the King. So I’m permanently on the lam, as they say.” He chuckled and waved at the universe. “Ye want the truth, eh?” He squatted next to Sophia again. “How important is the truth right now, Miss Ne’er-the-oracle?”
Slowly Sophia reached out, and just as slowly, she touched his face. “Maybe you are worthy.”
Ranger laughed. “My kind will ne’er again be allowed such power an’ ye ken that, Ne’er-the-oracle.”
Sophia shrugged.
Whooping echoed off the water and individual lights over the glow grew distinct.
A helicopter approached.
Ranger stood. He spun the sword around his wrist before sticking it into the sand. “The plan.” He winked at Gabe. “The vamps give me control o’ th’ fae side o’ th’ arrangements an’ I give them ye two as compensation. They stop feedin’ on my few remainin’ brothers an’ return to th’ old ways o’ feedin’ on only those we provide.” He inhaled, then exhaled slowly. “Vampires can fight amongst themselves all they want, but no more riskin’ Titania an’ Oberon.”
Sophia squeezed Gabe’s arm again.
Ranger looked down at Gabe as the copter approached and whipped up the air. “Now ye keep the young lady here while I talk to Mr. Clayton, understand? Ye’re mundanes. Dinnae run an’ cause th’ vamps t’ chase ye. They cannae help themselves when there’s prey.” He winked again. “Neither can I.”
The copter landed about a hundred feet down the beach and the door slid open. Two men jumped out—one wearing a huge cowboy hat, a suit, and cowboy boots with spurs, and the other dressed in all-black commando gear. A female vampire with huge balloon-like breasts, lips so red they were obvious from where Gabe and Sophia sat on the beach, huge fake-blonde hair, shoes with deadly-looking heels, and a glittery red sequin dress waited in the copter. She chewed gum, checked her spikey nails, and looked bored.
Ranger sniffed the air. He frowned. “That must have hurt,” he muttered. “Since I took her token.” Then he shrugged and walked toward the vampires.
He didn’t mean the weird female vampire in the copter. He hadn’t been looking at her.
Had the tall woman Gabe didn’t know, the one who’d reached for the van’s door handle, followed them? Had the elves? “Is Papa here?” he asked Sophia, even though there was no way Papa could have found them.
She grinned.
If Papa had followed, then other magicals were here.
Hopefully they’d get here before the vamps decided to have a snack.