Chapter 7

7

O livia, Theo, and Roniburst out into the cool night air, skirted around the sailing ship, and headed down the soaking wet sidewalk.

"Where do you think he's going?" Roni asked.

"I have no idea." Olivia stopped abruptly in front of an open doorway as a grinning young woman rushed out and skidded to a halt in front of Olivia and the others. She raked her hands through the short, blond tufts of her hair in pleasure and laughed gaily.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed loudly. "You have NO idea how good this feels." She scrubbed her hands all over her short pixie cut. "BEST DAY EVER!" she shouted at the top of her lungs. "WOO-HOOO!"

Olivia watched as the woman danced gleefully down the street before turning to look through the door she'd emerged from. It was the local hair salon. Inside, Lily Brody, the owner, stood, bewildered and holding yards and yards of thick, long golden hair. It was wrapped around her arms like yarn and then swept around her legs to the ground where it lay in heaps that almost filled the salon.

Shaking her head and shiftingher gaze, Olivia caught Theopeering intently through the window of the clothing store next door. Leaning in to see what had snagged his attention so thoroughly, she saw dozens of tiny little men—elves, each no bigger than a Snickers bar—stitching and hammering away at the pairs of shoes in the window display.

"RUN, RUN, AS FAST AS YOU CAN!" A loud, high-pitched voice pierced the air, followed by a maniacal laugh. "YOU CAN'T CATCH ME!!!"

Olivia looked up and blinked. "Is that…?"

"Uh-huh." Roni nodded slowly, her eyes wide and her mouth open. "It's a ten-foot-high gingerbread man running down the street."

Oliviaspun around at the loud clatter of metal and horses' hooves to see an army of knights racing down the street at a gallop, their pennons snapping from the tips of their lances in the night air as they hooted and hollered battle cries.

"This is really getting out of hand," Olivia muttered.

"You're telling me."

The two of them glanced up at the indigo sky as several dark shadows wearing pointy hats and cackling loudly shot across the horizon on broomsticks.

"Seriously?" Olivia shouted indignantly. "So clichéd."

"Come on." Theo tugged Olivia's hand. "We need to find that goblin." Olivia opened her mouth to warn him but wasn't quick enough. He stepped off the sidewalk and into a gooey beige mess. "Urgh? What the hell is this?"

"Um, I think it's porridge," Roni supplied helpfully,and Olivia snorted.

Theo let out a resigned sigh and carried first Olivia and then Roni over the river of porridge running down the street and to the other side. Despite the gallons of hot porridge, those glittery footprints still sparkled atop it.

They bypassed a young woman in a red hooded cloak skipping happily down the sidewalk with a basket swinging in her hands and followed the trail of footprints around the corner onto the next block.

Suddenly, a truck screeched to a halt next to them. The doors flew open and Jake and Mac climbed out.

"We've been looking everywhere for you!" Jake rushed to Roni's side. "Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." Roni nodded.

Olivia glanced down at Jake's Lederhosen and then across to Mac, who was wearing the same. "Uh, bold choice of costume?"

Before they could answer, she saw Roni's eyes narrow as she reached up with tentative fingers and touched the darkening bruise at Jake's jaw. "What happened?" Roni demanded.

"I was punched by an old lady," he admitted with a sullen pout.

"Huh?"

"We were kidnapped by a witch, who was trying to bake Mac into a pie and spit-roast me over a fire."

"I don't even know where to start unpacking that sentence." Olivia blinked while Roni fussed over her fiancé.

"What the hell's going on?" Mac glanced down the street at the ensuing chaos.

"Oh, you know," Olivia replied. "Just business as usual in Mercy. Ali Baba and his forty thieves decided to pillage the pub, then Sinbad and his sailors arrived and it turned into a full-on brawl. We met a narcoleptic Sleeping Beauty and an alcoholic Cinderella, and got propositioned by Pinocchio, who, it turns out, is a sex pest."

"Uh-huh," Jake said slowly. "Well, we hacked down a hundred-foot-tall beanstalk and knocked out a giant before being kidnapped by a witch who lived in a gingerbread cottage and wanted to eat us."

"Touché."

"Looks like we got ourselves some rogue fairy-tale creatures." Mac scratched his chin thoughtfully. "What's the plan?"

"The short version is we're goblin-hunting." Olivia glanced down at the footprints. "If you're coming along, try to keep up. We'll explain on the way."

The footprints led to Bailey's convenience store. Even though Mr. Bailey had passed away and the store now belonged to Jake's brother-in-law, Tommy, they'd kept the name in homage to the dear shopkeeper who'd been so beloved by the town and who'd been killed by a soul-stealing demon, although most of the residents had not been privy to that information.

"So, if you force the goblin to wear clothes, it will banish him?" Jake asked quietly as they approached the doorway. "I can't even believe that sentence just came out of my mouth."

"That's what the lore says," Olivia replied as she pressed her face up against the window and looked in. All the lights were on and the store was open, but there was no one in sight. One by one, they crept inside. "Spread out," Olivia mouthed.

They'd only been searching for a few minutes when Olivia heard her name yelled loudly, followed by swearing and the sound of shelving toppling over. She and Roni took one look at each other and ran in the direction of the commotion. They skidded to a halt with Mac behind them to see Theo and Jake rolling around on the floor in a lake of spilled milk with a fat, naked guy.

Theo had pulled his hoodie off and was trying to wrestle the creature into it, but it wriggled and squirmed and shrieked in his face.

"Ahhhhh, get it off me!" Jake yelled as a pair of hairy naked buttocks squished against his cheek.

"No! No! No!" the little man yelped as he fought and squirmed and kicked at Theo, who kept trying to force him into the hoodie. "Not clothes! Anything but clothes!"

"Alright, stop!" Olivia ordered. The three of them stared up at her, breathing heavily. Theo's shirt was soaked with milk and droplets of it were dripping from his hair. "No disappearing," she warned the goblin. "If I have to come looking for you again, trust me. Next time it won't be clothes. I will send you into the deepest, darkest pit of hell."

"No disappearing," he agreed sullenly as Theo and Jake released him, climbed to their feet, and hauled the little man up.

"Who are you?" Olivia demanded.

"Puck." He eyed Jake and Theo with distrust. "My name is Puck."

"Puck," Olivia replied with a frown. "Like in A Midsummer Night's Dream ?''

"Arghhh," Puck growled in annoyance. "One time! I got drunk one time with a bunch of Elizabethans, and the next thing I know, some tedious hack is writing me into his ridiculously long-winded play, and for the next five hundred years, that's all anyone thinks of when they hear my name. Do you have any idea how pissed Oberon was with me? The fairy realms are supposed to be a secret. Instead, we get plagiarized by some tedious ball sack who called himself a playwright."

"Bullshit!" Jake snorted. "You're the real Puck, from the play?"

"I thought Puck was supposed to be a mischievous sprite?" Roni mused.

"Artistic license," Puck huffed. "Apparently, I wasn't pretty enough for Will."

"You actually knew William Shakespeare?" Roni replied.

Puck shrugged and admitted grudgingly, "I'll say this for him, he knew how to wear a codpiece. Takes a secure man to pull off tights and a bedazzled jockstrap."

"We're getting off the point here," Olivia interjected. "Why did you let all of these fairy-tale creatures loose?"

"Me?" he spluttered indignantly. "That wasn't me. Do I look like a complete moron?"

"Well…"

"Shut up, Jake," Mac warned.

Olivia's brow furrowed. "If you didn't let them loose, then how did they get here?"

"Duh…the Gospodar, I imagine."

"The what?" Olivia replied in confusion.

"The primary copy of all fairy tales," he rolled his eyes. "Massive old crusty leather book with a huge-ass lock on it."

"Um, this book." Roni swallowed uncomfortably. "It wouldn't have happened to be in the possession of Marta Varga, would it?"

"Marta Varga?" Olivia glanced over at her friend. "The old Croatian lady? Didn't she pass away last month?"

"I lived with Marta for a long time." Puck scowled. "She was a nice woman. Fed me, looked after me. The book had been in her family for generations, came over with them from the Old World. After she died, I had to fend for myself, don't know what happened to the book."

"Ummm…."

They all slowly turned to stare at Roni, her cheeks flushed as she looked at them sheepishly. "Whoops…" She smiled awkwardly.

"Really?" Jake replied dryly. "I'm wearing Lederhosen, I got punched in the face by an old lady, and I had a goblin's sweaty ball sack squashed against my cheek, and all you got is… whoops?"

"Sorry." She winced. "This is all my fault."

Suddenly, the ground shook violently and the lights flickered. A booming voice echoed from outside. "FEE FI FO FUM."

"Shit," Jake swore. "Looks like Andre the Giant's awake."

"Roni," Olivia asked urgently, "where is the book now?"

"In the museum, on my desk in my office."

"I'll get it." Jake backed up toward the store's front door. "Meet me back outside the pub."

They all watched as he took off running, then the ground heaved and lurched again, causing them tostagger.

"We'd better do as he says." Olivia grabbed Puck's hairy hand. "You're sticking with me until we put all these creatures back."

"You'd better hurry up then." Puck blinked up at her with large dark eyes.

"What do you mean?"

"I mean, if you don't get them all back in the book by midnight, they stay… permanently ."

Olivia's eyes grew wide. "What's the time?" she demanded.

Roni glanced at her watch in panic. "11:45 p.m."

"Fuck," Olivia breathed. "RUN!"

They emptied out of the convenience store and headed toward the pub as fast as possible, only just dodging an army of flying monkeys on their way. They skidded to a halt in front of thewooden sailing shipas Jake rounded the corner with an old leatherbound book.

"Is this it?"

Puck nodded. "That's it."

"What do we do?" Olivia asked urgently.

"Only the one who opened it can put them back."

Olivia grabbed the book from Jake and tossed it to Roni. She caught it with both hands and flipped it open.

"What now?" Roni yelled.

"You have the power, you are in command of the book, you have to order them back in and be firm."

Oliviaglanced at her watch. "11:55 p.m.! Hurry up, Roni!"

Roni set the opened book on the road and stood up. Placing her fingers in her mouth, she let out the loudest, shrillest whistle any of them had ever heard.

Everything screeched to a halt. The witches hovering on their broomsticks watched curiously, the flying monkeys hanging in the sky beside them. Tiny fairies bobbed on the night air, glowing brightly. Peter Pan leaned against a streetlight, clutching onto his wayward shadow. The knights reined in their horses, and even the enormous gingerbread man stood still, watching silently.

"That's enough!" Roni told them in a no-nonsense tone. "Everyone, back in the book. NOW!"

"I love it when she does the schoolteacher voice." Jake murmured.

Grudgingly, the fairy-tale creatures sheepishly marched toward the book, looking thoroughly chastised.

"Apologies, milady," said one knight as his comrades-in-arms dismounted. They all bowed and led their horses back to the book, shrinking as they stepped in.

"Sorry, ma'am." One of Ali Baba's thieves handed Roni a broken beer bottle before hopping back into the pages with several of his friends.

"Sorry," they all murmured as they disappeared.

The three pigs went in next, followed by a fairy godmother and a wolf in a nightdress and sleeping cap.Next came the sailors, dragging their huge ship forward by heavy ropes. With an apology and a final heave-ho, the ship and its men shrank, and they too disappeared.

The porridge then poured back in, bringing along geese, mice, ducklings…

Finally, the book—its once-blank pages now covered with elegant lettering and elaborate illustrations—snapped shut and lay silently on the cold dark street just as the town clock struck midnight.

Olivia picked the book up and clicked the lock back into place.

"Here." Mac held out a roll of duct tape. "I grabbed this from Bill's truck, just in case. Just to be on the safe side."

"Good idea." Olivianodded and together they taped the dangerous book tightly shut.

"Hey!"

They all glanced over to find Dom leaning up against the side of the pub. "You all look as if you could use a drink." He nodded toward the pub. "Jackson's just cracked open a bottle of the really really good stuff."

"Sounds good to me." Mac headed toward the entrance, stepping over the broken glass from the windows.

"So." Roni's gaze swept over Jake as he approached. "The Lederhosen, are you…?"

"No, Roni," he replied firmly, and Olivia snorted loudly.

"But couldn't you just…"

"No!" He turned her around and marched her toward the pub.

Still clutching the firmly taped book to her chest with one arm, Olivia turned to the naked goblin. "What about you, Puck? Coming for a drink?"

"No thanks." He patted his milk-stained belly. "After all that excitement, I think I'll take a little nap."

"Where will you go?"

"Oh, don't worry." He grinned mischievously. "I'll be around." He snapped his fingers and disappeared in a poof of glitter.

"That doesn't exactly fill me with confidence," Olivia muttered.

Theo's hand gripped Olivia's free hand and squeezed gently. "Come on, let's go check on the kids."

Smiling tiredly, she leaned her head on his shoulder as they wandered toward the pub.

Dominik took a final drag on his cigarette and stubbed it out on the still damp ground. Taking a long, deep swig from the bottle in his hand and smiling widely, he looked up into the dark sky as it glittered with dozens of tiny pinpricks of light.

"I think I might buy myself a house in Mercy."