New World Order (War of the Fae: Book 4) (9 page)

He lifted his head and sniffed the air.
 
“I smell a pixie.
 
I like to eat pixies.”

That made me mad.
 
I shoved Scrum to the side a couple inches so I could stand next to him.
 
“The pixie’s not on the menu, boogie man.
 
And stop drooling!
 
This is our lunchroom, for shit’s sake.
 
Have a little class.
 
You know, you don’t have to act low just because you’re call a low-fae.”

The buggane frowned at me.
 
“You are disappointed in me, Jayne?
 
Why?
 
I am here to protect you.”

“Of course I’m disappointed in you!
 
You’re supposed to be ... I don’t know, representing the coolest guy I know practically – and you’re fucking it up big time.
 
Chase doesn’t drool.
 
And he doesn’t threaten to eat my friends.
 
Shame on you.”

He actually looked chagrined.
 
“Sorry.”

I looked at Scrum to see if he was as stunned by that response as I was.
 
Yep
.
 
Then I looked at the audience of mostly changelings, holding up their plates and forks.
 
Yep, them too.
 
I’m not sure that any of us had the experience necessary to fairly assess a buggane’s behavior, but even to us rank amateurs, this seemed strange.
 
I decided to just go with it.

“Good.
 
That’s better.
 
Now how about cleaning up the mess you made?”
 
I waved my hand towards the floor.
 
“Come on.
 
Snap to it.
 
Don’t make me wait.”
 
Snap to it?
 
Where in the hell did that come from?
 
I was totally channeling B-movie dialogue without even trying.
  

He shuffled over to the nearest table and grabbed an abandoned napkin, going back to where he had drooled and getting down on his knees to wipe it up.

I turned to Finn and mouthed,
What the fuck?
And he put his hands up in response, telling me he was as baffled as I was.

Gorm stood up, the napkin held loosely in his hand, looking as if he was waiting for further instructions.

“Are you hungry?
 
Do you want the moving meats on the buffet?”

He nodded his head silently, looking very forlorn.

“Jayne, don’t even think about it!
 
I’m not kidding,” said a frustrated Scrum, getting madder and madder by the minute.
 
“He’s just trying to trick you.
 
He’s going to eat you or something.”

“He can’t.
 
He’s been sworn to protect me.”
 
I hoped like hell I was right, as I pushed past Scrum and headed to the buffet.
 
I wanted to watch Gorm like a hawk the whole time, but something told me to act cool about it – as cool as it was possible for me to act when I was shaking in my moccasins.

“Jayne!” whispered Tim.
 
“Are you
completely
off your rocker now?
 
Did that power surge fry your very last common-sense brain cell?
 
He can smell me, Jayne.
 
Smell me
.
 
Did you get that?”

“Shut up, Tim,” I whispered feverishly.
 
“Everything’s going to be fine.”
 
Or at least I was hoping it was going to be fine.
 
Hopefully the way to a buggane’s heart was through his stomach – full of squiggly buffet meats and not pixies.

I piled a heaping helping of the unsavory daemon meats onto a plate and turned to give it to Gorm.
 
He had moved and was now standing very close to me, causing me a minor heart attack when I suddenly realized he was within face-eating range.
 
Scrum was just behind him, ready to give him a power squeeze if necessary, which only made me feel slightly less afraid.
 
I considered pulling The Green up into me for protection, but I was worried about my eyes.
 
I couldn’t afford to go blind again, especially at this particular moment.

I held out the plate.
 
“Why don’t you take this to one of the tables over there and have a seat.
 
I’ll be right over.”

Gorm took the plate from me docilely and did what I told him to do.
 
I watched as he sat down, hunched over his meal, and began shoveling it in with an abandoned fork he’d found on the table.
 
I decided that table manners were probably too much to ask from a buggane, and turned my attention back to Scrum – a very angry Scrum.

“If you keep doing this kind of stuff, I cannot guarantee your safety, Jayne.
 
Do you have any idea what that does to a daemon?
 
To feel that way about his charge?”

I put my hand on Scrum’s arm to placate him.
 
“I’m sorry.
 
I know you take your duties very seriously.
 
But what was I supposed to do?
 
Zap him and maybe go permanently blind?
 
Let Finn shoot the one guy or the
thing
who still had a connection to Chase?
 
No
.
 
We can’t do that.
 
He’s my ticket to getting Chase back, and I’m not letting him go.”

He hesitated for a moment and then said, “Okay, but why does it have to be
you
taking these risks?
 
Why not someone else?”

I looked around, throwing my arms up.
 
“Who?
 
Do you see anyone else around here volunteering?”

Scrum looked around and then cast his eyes down.
 
“No.”

“Exactly.
 
If not me, then who?
 
Not those wimp changelings over there, using their damn dinner plates as protection.
 
Pfft.
 
Like that could stop a hungry cannibalistic buggane.
 
Idiots.”
 
I shook my head in disappointment with my fellow recruits.
 
I was beginning to think a lot of these Light Fae were total chickenshits.

I turned to go join Gorm, but Scrum grabbed my arm.
 
I looked down at his hand gripping my arm and then up into his eyes.
 
“What now?”

“Just.
 
Be careful, is all.”
 
He sighed deeply.
 
“And wait for me.”

I smiled, patting his hand before pulling it off my arm.
 
“With pleasure.
 
Now come on, grouchy.”

We walked over and joined Gorm at the table, sitting on either side of him.
 
The crowd at the other end of the room decided to skip the rest of their lunch and quickly filtered out of the room.
 
The only one left standing there was Finn, but not for long.
 
Seconds after the last changeling left the room, the door flew open and Tony and Spike came rushing in, both of them looking panicked.

“Jayne!” yelled Tony, his face going white.
 
I swear I saw his body start to go misty on me, but then it was back, making me wonder if I’d imagined it.

Spike’s eyes were swirling red and black like crazy – mostly black.
 
It looked weird as hell.
 
“You need me, Jayne?”

I smiled.
 
“Nope.
 
Not right now.
 
Maybe later.”

Spike smiled, slowly shaking his head.
 
“Never a dull moment with you, is there?”

I stuck out my tongue at him and he laughed, turning towards the door.
 

“Call me if you need me later.
 
You know what to do.”
 
He gave me a meaningful look and flashed me one of his killer smiles before going through the door and letting it swing shut behind him.

Tony and Finn began walking over slowly and carefully, their eyes scanning back and forth from me to Gorm and back again.
 
Finn still had his arrow notched in his bow, just waiting for one wrong move from our boogieman.

Gorm couldn’t have cared less about us.
 
He was too busy polishing off the last bit of meat on his plate.
 
With his mouth more full of food than I thought was even possible, he gestured to the plate.
 
“Mo?”

I rolled my eyes.
 
“Tony, could you get Gorm another plate of worms?”

I saw the evil light flicker in Gorm’s eyes at the exact moment I realized I’d made the mistake of saying his name.
 

I didn’t think about my next move, I just did it; I reached out as fast as lighting and slapped him hard across the face.
 
CRACK!
 

My hand came away slightly slimy.
 
I wiped it on the tablecloth with a look of distaste.
 
“
Ew.
 
That’s disgusting.
 
Maybe you should consider face powder or something.”

Gorm looked at me in stunned astonishment, swallowing his last bite of food with a loud gulp.
 
“Did you just ... slap me?”
 
His hand reached up slowly to feel his cheek, which now had an angry red handprint on it.

“Yeah, I did.
 
And I’ll do it again
Gorm
, if you so much as
think about
eating me or any of the other fae in this compound.”

He frowned at me, confused.
 
“But ... you can’t stop me if I want to do that, you know.”

“Oh yeah?
 
Try me,” I said, staring him down.
 
I pulled some of The Green into my body and fed it up into my eyes, sending the energy directly out of my pupils to hit him full force in the face.

The gasps of ooohs and aaahs that I heard from my friends around me told me it had the effect I was going for.
 
I let the connection drop, still keeping my eyes on Gorms’.
 

“You catch my drift?”

“Whaaaaa ... ?” he asked, as if he was in a daze.

I snapped my fingers in front of his face.
 
“Hey!
 
Pay attention here!
 
I’m in the middle of threatening you.”
 
I sighed impatiently.
 
“Do you understand what I’m saying?
 
No eating the fae?
 
Fae are not on the menu?”

He nodded, a chagrined look on his face.
 
“Yes, Mother.”

I closed my eyes and tried to find my happy place.
 
My hand itched to slap him again.
 
I had to grip it in a tight fist to keep it down and un-slimed.
 
“Do
not
.
 
Call me.
 
Mother.”

Gorm frowned.
 
“Why not?
 
It is who you are.”

I looked at him, shaking my head in frustration, ready to blow at any second.
 
“How could you possibly know that?
 
You don’t know me at all!
 
You’re low-fae for shit’s sake!”

He looked at me with nothing but innocence on his face.
 
It was so Chase-like, it made my heart skip a beat.
 

“I have not always been who you see before you today.
 
I have been to the Otherworlds, and I can feel who you are; it does not matter what I see.
 
I am low-fae now, yes.
 
But you are the Mother, that is certain.”
 
He shrugged his shoulders and then grabbed the plate of meat that had just arrived from the buffet, courtesy of Tony.
 
Just before he shoved another forkful of it in his mouth, he said, “Denial does not change reality for everyone else.
 
Only for the one denying and those who are foolish enough to believe the fantasy.”

I had nothing to say to that.
 
How could this slobbery monster be giving me words of wisdom that actually made some sense, no matter how much I didn’t want them to?

I looked over at Tony.
 
“Okay, so now what?
 
What do we do with the Chase-monster?”

Tony’s eyes were wide and he was just shaking his head from side to side.
 
“Jayne, I have to admit.
 
I’m kinda stumped on this one.
 
I’m not sure chess club prepared me for this kind of move.”

I watched Gorm dig into his meal, trying to ignore the actual eating part to just focus on his face.
 
My attention was pulled away by his bicep and forearm muscles nearest me, flexing and moving as he shoved forkful after forkful of meat into his grizzly face.
 
He needed a shave, badly.
 
Even so, his very solid presence brought back intense memories of Chase, and I knew there was only one thing to do.