From the opposite side of the barn, Josh banged his fist against a hay bale. “Fucking perfect. First a cherry, now an apple.”
“No!” Bruce snapped. “I am not going to eat more fairy fruit!”
Nero blew out a breath. “You might have to, if it’s the only way to find the demon.” His expression was grave. “We’re facing the end of the world, here. If we can’t stop the poison from expanding into Lake Michigan, the whole continent will be contaminated.”
“It’s not just an apple,” Bruce growled. How the hell didn’t they know that?
“Of course it’s not just an apple,” Nero argued. “But we’ve been looking for weeks and haven’t found the demon. According to the science crew, there’s only a few days left before the dead zone hits Lake Michigan. If we poison the Great Lakes, we poison Canada, the US, and eventually the world. Everything will die.”
Bruce knew that. Fucking hell, it was all over the news, 24/7. They all had this graphic of the lake at the center of an expanding circle. Some drew the circle in red like blood, others in green like poison, as if that made any difference. The point was that everything inside that circle died—slowly at first, but with increasing speed the closer you got to the center of the lake. And that circle was growing every second of every day. Foot by foot, it was expanding, poisoning the land with cyanide and putting some unknown crap into the air that was killing everything on the earth. No one knew exactly how far it had to go until the world ended. But they all agreed that once it touched Lake Michigan, North America was screwed, and the western hemisphere soon after that. The latest projections said they were only days away from that happening. A week at most.
And there was no solution in sight.
But as much as Bruce wanted to be the savior for everyone, he already knew it wouldn’t work. “I’ve asked. Bitter—” He cut his word off. He did not want to call the guy. “He doesn’t know where it is.”
“He must,” Lady Kinstead said. “I have seen it. If you eat the apple, you save the world.”
That sounded like a great idea… not. A crazy beauty tells him to eat the apple and whammo, the world is saved. Right. And yet all the people around him seemed to take her seriously. Worse, her words were an exact echo of what Bitterroot had said to him, which was freaky scary. Especially since he did not know how to save the world!
Then Nero started drawing that same map in the dirt with his boot. “That’s the dead zone,” he said. “That’s Lake Michigan. We’re right fucking here.” He planted his boot at the edge of the line representing Lake Michigan. “A few more feet and we’re all dead.”
Bruce threw up his hands. “He doesn’t know. I already asked. I already offered.”
Josh closed his eyes. “Of course you did.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean?” Bruce said as he rounded on his brother. He wasn’t really angry at Josh, though the guy was being a prick. He was overwhelmed and in pain—and for most of his life, Josh had been his target whenever he felt like shit.
“It means—” Josh answered, but Nero got there first.
“Don’t get into that crap now,” Nero snapped at Josh. Then he rounded on Bruce. “You asked him already?”
Bruce nodded. “The fairy prince doesn’t know.”
The woman crossed her arms in anger. “The fey know,” she said. “Why do you think I am here?”
He had no idea.
She stomped her foot. “Eat the apple! Make them tell!”
Nero grimaced. “Do we call him now?”
She pursed her lips and her eyes grew vague. Or bright. Or something. Bruce couldn’t even tell what, but her entire face went weird. Then she solidified back to normal. “It must be him,” she said, pointing at Bruce.
“I already asked. He didn’t know.”
“Then why do you still see the apple?”
He hadn’t really been seeing it. It hadn’t even been in the forefront of his thoughts right then. But at her question, the damned thing appeared before him, all bright and shiny and smelling like the apple pie he loved so much. He would have closed his eyes, but he knew it would remain there behind his eyelids. So instead, he focused on Josh as he gave his answer.
“He wants to enslave Josh. He said so.”
Josh and Nero jolted at that, both of them reacting in predictable ways. Josh shook his head, his expression filled with defiance. Nero frowned, clearly thinking hard in the way of a guy used to sorting through military strategy. But neither said a word.
Bruce looked at the woman. “I don’t know how I fit into the picture, and I don’t know why the bastard picked me to offer the fruit to. But I know he wants my brother, and I’m not going to help him. He won’t get Josh through me. Not ever.”
Lady Kinstead glared at him. “Then your brother dies along with the entire world. At least a slave is alive.”
Nero shook his head. “There has to be another way.” He stared hard at the woman. “We have to find another way.”
