“But she’s a telepath, or at least sensitive, so who knows what being in a completely magical realm will do to her power?She could end up being a major league badass over there.”
I knew he was trying to cheer me up, but it felt kinda bleak, watching my two heaviest hitters load up into a government SUV and head back to the mountains.Barry was just a brawler, but he was incredibly strong, and way faster than anyone that big had a right to be.And Harker was a legit threat in any situation, be it fighting, shooting, or slinging fireballs.They would have made almost any fight an even field.
Now I only had three humans, and while Geri knew her way around a gun better than me, Jarvis and Ash were completely unknown quantities.But you don’t ever go to war with the army you want.You go to Fairyland with the army you have.
4
Okay, before you go, we need to make sure you’re all wearing only Faerie-friendly stuff,” James said as I walked back into the tattoo shop.“That means no cold iron anywhere.”
“Like no buttons or zippers?”Jarvis asked, looking nervously at his pants.
“No,” I replied, jumping in because I could see the glint in James’s eye that said he was about to seriously screw with the new guy.As partial as I am to a good hazing, I was in a hurry.It wasn’t going to take long for Father Matthew and Skeeter to run out of ways to keep the local po-po from noticing that a whole building and everyone in it was missing, so we needed to stop screwing around and get over to Fairyland soon.Once there, we could take a little more time figuring things out, because time moves slower there, at least according to what Mama told me.“Cold iron is kinda specific.Steel isn’t a fairy’s favorite thing, but your zipper doesn’t have a high enough iron content to be dangerous.Usually the only stuff you have to worry about is weapons.So if you’ve got a good pocketknife, leave it behind.But you don’t have to cut the buttons off your pants or take out your body jewelry.”That last part was directed at Geri and Ash, who both had enough rings in their faces to set off an airport metal detector.
“You take all the fun out of this, Bubba,” James grumbled.
“On a clock, cuz,” I replied.“And I’ll be taking my gun, and my cold iron ammunition.That’s non-negotiable.”
“You’re technically part of the royal family of both Courts, so it ain’t like anybody short of one of the Queens can say shit to you, so go ahead,” the big man said.I stared at him for a second, then realized he was right.If I’d known all that the last time I went through the mushroom ring, it might have saved on some fights.Probably not, though.Most of the crap I got into was either on the orders of Mab or Titania, or caused by Puck, who didn’t give a shit about protocol.
“How long is it gonna take you to get stuff set up?”I asked.
“About ten minutes.”
“Okay,” I replied.“Everybody outside with me while James sets up.We need to figure out what weapons we’re taking and who’s carrying what.We won’t need any survival gear, because I don’t plan on making this a camping trip, but we’re not going in unarmed.”I turned and walked to the parking lot, my three amigos in tow.
I opened the back door of my F-250 and lifted the back bench seat, exposing a pair of weapons drawers.Geri went around to the back of the truck and dropped the tailgate, opening up a hidden compartment in the bed full of long guns.
I looked at Ash.“You know how to shoot?”
“I’m a stagehand in Georgia.Of course I know how to shoot,” they replied.
“Okay, what do you want to carry?I’ve got a couple Glock 19s with plenty of spare magazines, a G26 backup if you want something in an ankle holster, or?—”
“Gimme a 19 with four magazines and the 26,” they said.“You gonna carry a backpack or something for extra rounds?”
“Yeah, I’ll have a couple boxes of ammo for each gun we take,” I said.
“Sounds good,” they said, accepting the pistols and checking their action.They clipped the 19 to their hip and knelt to strap the backup to their right ankle.
“What do I get?”Jarvis asked, looking at the drawers like a kid on Christmas morning.
“What can you shoot?”I replied.
He looked up at me, confused.“What do you mean, what can I shoot?It’s a gun.You point the end with the hole in it toward the bad guy and pull the trigger.What else do I need to be able to do?”
Geri and I exchanged a look and at the same time, said, “Shotgun.”
Jarvis looked confused, but after a minute, I handed him a little Smith & Wesson .38 revolver and pointed him around to where Geri stood holding a Mossberg 500 twelve-gauge.I felt a little twinge seeing her hand that gun to Jarvis, because I kept it around mostly for Skeeter, who couldn’t hit the broad side of a barn with a rocket launcher.But Jarvis was the one with the least experience among us, so he got the most forgiving guns.He was unlikely to be able to screw up a revolver, and I could take along my Colt Python instead of my Taurus Judge as a backup, and if I ran out of .357 ammo, I could use Jarvis’s .38 ammunition in my backup.
“What are you taking, Ger?”I asked.
“Give me the other Glock 19 in a shoulder rig, and I’ll take this MP-5 with a short scope.That keeps all my shit in nine mil, and if we run into a problem that’s too far away for me to hit with a submachine gun, we can just run like hell.”
That made sense.We were probably going in way too heavily armed, and the first fae royal we ran into would probably take all our guns away, but better to start off with it and lose it, than to leave it at home and need it the second we stepped through the portal.
“Should we take bulletproof vests or body armor or anything like that?”Jarvis asked.“What about grenades?Should we carry grenades?”
“We’re going to rescue people, not invade Panama, bro,” Ash said.“Besides, I’m pretty sure we’ll be the only people with guns.Anybody who wants to kill us will use either magic or swords, and Kevlar doesn’t do shit against blades.”
