“Yeah, unless the order is ‘subdue the giant hillbilly,’” I replied.“I seem to recall you screwing that one up royally.”
I didn’t expect it to work.Not again.But Mathis either hadn’t heard what happened the last time me and mine were caged up under Titania’s castle, or he forgot, because he took two steps forward and started wagging his index finger at me, just close enough for me to reach through the bars and yank him forward.His face slammed into the metal, and I thought it sounded so damned melodious I shoved him back and did it again, bouncing his noggin off our cell three more times until his eyes rolled back and he sagged in my grip.I let him slide to the floor and turned to Jarvis.
“Reach under his tunic, grab the keys to the cell, and get us outta here,” I said, turning away from the bars.
“Why don’t you do it?”he asked.
“I gotta pee, so I figured this’d be a good time for all y’all to be focusing your attention elsewhere.I got a shy bladder.”
Jarvis, Geri, and Ash all scrambled for the front of the cell while I unloaded the sweat tea I’d had with dinner.A few seconds later, I heard theclankof the cell door opening, zipped myself up, and followed my team out.I paused right past the entrance, then went back inside, grabbed the water bucket, and set it down outside the cell.Then I dragged Corporal Mathis, who I was pretty sure was gonna be Private Mathis as soon as he was found, into the cell, locked the door, and walked toward the entrance to the dungeon.
“Why did you take the water bucket?”Ash asked.
I grinned at them and said, “That way there’s nothing to drink in there but the pee bucket.”
They stared at me.“You’re disgusting.”
“You ain’t wrong.But he’s a dick, so it’s fine.”Then I led the team up the stairs, fully expecting to walk into a ring of guards just like the last time Titania had us trapped.
But we didn’t.There was nobody waiting for us on the stairs, or at the top of the stairs, or in the guardroom right beside the stairs.Just a chest with all our weapons in it, so we geared back up and headed out to see if there was anybody awake anywhere in the castle.We meandered through the massive building for at least twenty minutes without seeing anybody but one chambermaid, who turned tail and ran in the other direction as soon as she caught sight of us.
I tried to figure out what was going on.Last time I was here, Titania had her security on point, and we could barely fart without ten guards running up to smell it.This time, we’d portalled right into the courtyard, which I figured would have earned us a shitload of guard attention, but thinking back on it, there had only been a dozen or so faeries milling about, a few servants and hardly any guards on the walls.Something was definitely rotten in the Court of Summer.
“This is weird,” I said.
“Yeah,” Geri agreed.“I know I don’t have nearly the vast experience you have with castles and dungeons, but shouldn’t there be people around?”
“Last time we were here, it was about what you’d expect from watching movies,” I replied.“Bunches of people hustling back and forth doing castle-y stuff, carrying stuff to and fro, and a buttload more guards.”
“There weren’t a whole lot of guard fairies when we came through,” Jarvis said.“That seemed weird, but what do I know from fairy castles?”
“Nah, you’re right, J,” I said.“And it shoulda been a lot harder to bust out of the dungeon.Not to outsmart Mathis, he’s an idiot; but the old Titania never would have let him watch over us by himself.She knows how stupid he is.”
“If he’s such a moron, why would he be allowed to guard us?”Ash asked.“Wouldn’t she send him away to some far-off outpost to guard against winter coming or something?”
“Somebody’s watched too muchGame of Thrones,” I said.“But you’re right.I figure he’s probably kin to somebody important.But that doesn’t explain him guarding us with no backup.We gotta find somebody who’ll tell us what’s up.”
“Do we?”Geri asked.
Everybody turned and looked at her.She shrugged and said, “Hey, if what Harker said is true, Oberon just tried to wipe out humanity with some kind of faerie bioweapon.Why would we give a shit if it backfired and killed everybody in this joint?Seems like when the bad guy’s gun misfires and blows his head off instead of the hero’s.”
I had to think about that for a second.On the one hand,damn, that chick was cold as ice.On the other hand, she was kinda right.Grandfather or not, Oberon pretty much earned every shitty thing that could happen to him when he tried to unleash an extinction-level event on Atlanta.I mean, I hate Spaghetti Junction traffic as much as the next guy, but that was a little much.On the other other hand, he was kin, and there was a chance that if something bad was happening in Summer, it might be happening in Winter too.And I had a lot of people I cared about in the Winter Court right now.I also had three hands in this scenario, but we weren’t digging too deep into that bucket right now.
“We still gotta find out what’s going on.It might have something to do with why Mab stole the whole damned church instead of just crashing the wedding like a normal pissed-off relative,” I said.“Now let’s find somebody that will talk to us.”
That last bit was easier said than done because every room we poked our heads in was deserted, or at least looked that way.I remembered after seeing nothing but walls and rugs on the other side of the fifth doorway that faeries could glamour themselves to look like about anything they wanted to, including walls and rugs.So there was a good chance we’d found some people, they just didn’t want us to know they were found.
Then I got inspired in my thinking.And that inspiration came, like most of my best ones do, from my belly.In other words, I got hungry and that made me think that if there’s one place in a castle, hotel, or basically any big building that’s always gonna be occupied, it’s the kitchen.And the best way to find the kitchen is to follow the fat kid.So I let my nose guide us, and after about five more minutes of walking down stone-walled hallways, we came to a big wooden door with a bunch of delicious smells coming from the other side.I reached out to open it, and Ash cut me off.
“Why don’t you let me go first?”they asked.
“Why would I?”
“Because you’re a giant terrifying human with guns and knives hanging off looking like you want to murder everything you come across, and I’m skinny, cute, and have funky hair.I actually kinda look like I belong here.You look like you belong in a remake ofPredator.”
I stared down at them and had to admit they were right.Ash did look a lot less threatening, and since the one non-guard I’d seen had run screaming at the sight of me, this might be the time to choose discretion.The one time.“Fine.”
They nodded, mussed up their hair to make it look even more tousled, not that it needed help after a trans-dimensional jump and getting tossed into a dungeon, then pushed the door open and ran in, calling out “Help!Help!The giant human is right behind me!”
