Bloody Fairies (Shadow) (24 page)

CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

Hippy sat on the back of a cart and watched the ruins of the fortifications
dwindle into the distance. There went her family, her life, her home.

Behind her,
Nikifor was piled under the big domed roof along with boxes and boxes of Pierus’s things. His skin was the colour of the clouds overhead; if it hadn’t been full daylight, she’d have taken him for a vamp. Pierus rode at the front, holding the reins of the two sleepy-looking donkeys pulling them along. The cart swayed on every bend and corner as though it would topple over and take them all with it.

She watched everything she knew
disappear with dry eyes. Some little part of her had hoped the fairies would change their minds. Someone would come running after her and find a way to make her stay. But nobody had. Not one fairy even left the camp to wave goodbye. And why would they? She’d rejected them in favour of a muse.

She sniffed loudly. She’d been doing that ever since Pierus told her Flower wasn’t coming with them, he needed her in Shadow City. The sound didn’t seem to bother him though, sitting all the way up the other end of the cart. 

She gave a disconsolate sigh. They slowly trundled around a bend, and the fortifications disappeared. There, home was gone. She may as well put it out of her mind.

They slowe
d to a crawl at a sharp corner. The cart tilted, then landed on all four wheels and rocked. The rutted road wound through the forest like a lost snake. The donkeys plodded on, unconcerned. The wheels turned up clods of mud and flung them out onto the road behind. Ancient fig trees with twisty branches and thick, whispering clusters of leaves pressed in on both sides of the track. Anyone might have been in those branches, watching. She’d have been a lot happier if she’d thought Fitz and Ana were lurking there this time.

A pebble hit the side of the cart and bounced up near her hand. She scowled and threw it onto the road. Stupid flying pebbles.

They trundled on. It must have been a whole five minutes by now since they’d entered the forest. She was bored. Nikifor was asleep and talking to Pierus was about as much fun as poking herself in the eye.

Hippy glanced over her shoulder, disinterested
, at the sound of a knock from amongst the boxes. Nikifor had probably bumped something. Pierus certainly hadn’t noticed.

Fluffy Ducky ran out of his pouch and up her arm. He settled on her head and rested there, quivering.

Hippy tried to look up at him and almost toppled herself over in the process. “Fluffy Ducky? What’s the matter?”

Another
knock, followed by a rattle.

Hippy crawled over to the covered section of the cart
, shoved Nikifor’s arm out of the way and studied the haphazard stacks of boxes.

Fluffy Ducky leaped from her head to the top box, scuttled down and came to rest on a small steel box tucked into a corner. It shook underneath him.

“What is it Fluffy Ducky?” she whispered.

The box shook again. Fluffy Ducky waved a foreleg at her.

Hippy reached out very, very, carefully and eased the box free of the pile. She glanced sidelong at Nikifor to make sure he was still asleep. A thin film of sweat covered his upper lip. Wow, he really looked sick.

Fluffy Ducky clung to the box. His hairs all stood on end.

Hippy ran her fingers around the edges until she found the catch. She pouted. It was padlocked.

The box shuddered so violently Fluffy Ducky was thrown off. The movement caused another package to slide off the top of the pile and hit Nikifor in the face.

Nikifor turned over, buried his head in his hands and snored.

Hippy suppressed a giggle. She took the tiniest bit of fairy dust from her belt and sprinkled it on the padlock. The metal sparkled, then turned to dust. The catch popped open.

The box was still. Fluffy Ducky waited, poised, on the pile above it.

Hippy opened it up. Her eyes widened. The box contained a severed hand, so white and veiny it could only have belonged to a vamp. The little finger twitched.

Fluffy Ducky pounced. The hand jumped two feet in the air, fingers splayed, and attempted to grab the spider. Fluffy Ducky twisted in mid-air, wrapped all eight legs around the index finger and chomped.

Hippy squealed with delight. “Go Fluffy Ducky!”

Nikifor sat bolt upright and stared around in panic. “Vampires!”

“It’s a
vampire hand!” Hippy clapped madly.

“What’s going on back there?” Pierus pulled sharply on the reins.

“Fluffy Ducky’s fighting a vamp hand!” Hippy jumped up and down with excitement. The cart rocked.

Nikifor put out his hands to steady himself. His gaze fixed on the wrestling spider and hand. “What fresh horror is this?” his voice cracked.

Pierus uttered a whole string of bad words he’d obviously picked up from Poppy, scrambled off his seat and into the cart. “Don’t let it get into the sunlight!”

Hippy squealed a second time. “Fluffy Ducky it’s allergic to light!”

The hand convulsed violently and flew from one wall to the other in an attempt to throw off the spider, at the same time evading Pierus’s attempts to grab it. Nikifor pressed himself into a corner and watched the whole thing in horror-struck awe. Maybe this cart ride was going to be fun after all.

Pierus didn’t sound happy. “Hippy Ishtar, if you don’t control that spider I’m going to squash it. I need that hand.”

Hippy pouted. “Fluffy Ducky come back!”

Fluffy Ducky
stretched his legs out and wound them around a second finger, strapping the two fingers together. The hand went into a redoubled frenzy. It hit the walls, the roof, smashed into the pile of boxes and sent them tumbling all over the place.

Hippy shrugged when Pierus glared at her. “He’s busy. He’ll come back when the hand’s dead.”

A particularly nasty jolt shook the spider free. The hand took swift advantage by curling into a fist that knocked Fluffy Ducky flying.

“Fluffy Ducky!” Hippy ran
after the spider, caught him and teetered on the edge of the cart. When she regained her balance she saw that Pierus had leaped on the hand and was struggling to subdue it.

“Nikifor the box!” the muse king snapped.

Nikifor picked up the discarded box and held it at arm’s length. Pierus shoved the hand in there, closed the box, wound a hastily found chain around it and then put it inside a bigger box.

There was silence in the cart. Outside, a bird cackled. Leaves rustled in the forest.

“Why do you have a vamp hand?” Hippy asked.

Pierus breathed heavily from the exertion. His eyebrows gathered like storm clouds. “I need it,” he said. “I need vampire genetics if I am to discover a way to keep them from returning.”

“Why is it alive?”

“Because I preserved it with magic. Dead genetics are no good to me.”

“What are genetics?”

“Enough questions.” Pierus pushed his way past the boxes and Nikifor.

Hippy backed up, but there wasn’t anywhere to go unless she jumped into the mud.

Pierus grabbed her shoulders and pulled her close. He looked into her eyes in that intense way he had. “You would do well to keep your hands to yourself, Fairy. Do not touch my things. Some of them are very dangerous.”

Hippy scowled. It was rude of him to call her Fairy like that. She stroked Fluffy Ducky’s back to calm him. “But I’m bored.”

“Then I suggest you occupy yourself.” He reached into a coat pocket and took something out. “Here. Perhaps this will amuse you.” He opened his hand.

Hippy’s eyes widened. There in his palm lay a shiny, shiny crystal in the shape of a teardrop.

Pierus dropped it into her hand. “Do try to behave yourself.” Then he went back to his seat, picked up the reins and started the donkeys walking again.

Hippy resumed her seat. She held the crystal up and watched the sunlight play in all the tiny little facets. It was a very pretty little thing. It would normally keep her amused for hours, but something bothered her. Maybe it was the way she’d been so neatly manoeuvred into being a nice, cooperative, well-behaved little fairy.

She closed her hand over the crystal and twisted around. Pierus’s back was to her. Nikifor sat amongst the boxes, awake, staring off into his own little world. Hippy threw the crystal at him. It bounced off his arm and fell amongst the boxes. He flinched, but otherwise didn’t seem to notice.

She sighed and went back to watching the mud. It would have been so much better if Flower had come too.

A pebble hit the side of the cart and bounced off. A few seconds later another pebble hit her foot. That stung.

Hippy scowled and scanned the trees. Nobody there. If she thought for a second someone was throwing rocks at her, she was going to jump off this cart and throw fairy dust at them.   

A small, round pebble hit her i
n the arm. When another one whizzed through the air, Hippy raised her hand and caught it. Right. That was it. She jumped off the back of the cart, pulled her feet out of the mud they promptly sank into, then dashed into the trees as soon as she was on firm ground.

The forest was green and close. She could just hear the donkeys plodding away down the road. Huge leaves slapped against wooden trunks. A big black and white bird landed in a branch and made a noise like a rusty hinge.

“Right,” Hippy said. “Whoever you are, you’d better come out right now and tell me why you’re throwing rocks at me!”

Silence. A shadow flit
ted behind a tree. Yet another pebble flew through the air and bounced off her forehead.

“Ow! That’s it, you’re for it now!” Hippy bolted after the shadow.

The shadow darted from tree to tree, keeping just ahead of her. Hippy kept on it, determined, even though whoever it was disappeared every time she got close enough to reach out and grab hold.

Only when she realised they’d gone a long way into the forest did she stop. The figure had disappeared.

Hippy turned in a slow circle. Trees everywhere. The undergrowth was thick with spindly plants with little white flowers. She wasn’t sure which way led back to the road. If the forest people caught her alone out here they might do anything. Fairies weren’t supposed to stray this far into the forest. She gulped.

Twigs crunched. A rush of air. Someone knocked her to the ground. Hippy balled a fist and launched it, but she stopped an inch before making contact with her attacker’s face. Her eyes widened when she saw who’d landed on top of her. “Clockwork!”

He didn’t look the least bit happy to see her. “Yeah, it’s me. Surprised?”

“You shouldn’t
have come.” Hippy studied every detail of his face, from the little cut under his eye to the dreadlock that was plastered to his cheek with sweat. “How did you get here?”

“I followed you through the door Pierus opened. I’ve been following you ever since.” Clockwork reached a hand toward her face. It trembled. He snatched it away before he touched her. “Maybe I shouldn’t have. I don’t understand. What are you doing with the pretender? I thought you liked me.”

Hippy reached up and brushed the dreadlock away from his face. She blinked back tears. “This is bigger than just you and me. I’m sorry Clockwork, but–but something happened and it’s too late to go back now.”

“What happened?” Lines of confusion marred his smooth forehead. “I need to know Hippy, because I left my dad behind to follow you here. I thought you’d come back with me if I rescued you.”

Clockwork was the last person she wanted to tell. Her cheeks burned. She looked away.

“What is it?” This time he did touch her face and his voice was so concerned she almost let a tear escape.

“It’s complicated.”

“Tell me.”

Hippy took a deep breath. “Promise me you won’t be mad?”

“Why? What have you done?” Clockwork slid off her, sat on the damp
ground and helped her into a sitting position.

Hippy poked at the grass. “The thing is, your dad said I should go with Pierus if he took the Apple of Chaos, because somebody would have to take it from him again. He said I was the only one who could do it.”

A grin blossomed on Clockwork’s face. “Then you don’t like him better than me?”

“Of course not! He’s an ass, just like Poppy said.”

The grin dropped from his face just as quickly. “What do you mean my dad said you should do this?”

“He said the future of Shadow could depend on it,” Hippy said. “And he made me promise not to tell you.”

“Not to tell me? Why?” Clockwork’s lower lip trembled. “Why you?”

“Because–because he thinks
–” Hippy gestured in the direction she thought the road might lie, then dropped her hand. “Please don’t be mad, if we weren’t mixed up in all this I would never have let him do it. At least I don’t think I would have, I can hardly remember how it happened, except I had to prove to him I was loyal, so I could take back the Apple of Chaos later–I’m sorry–”