“Zara! Look out!” some guy yells.
Arrows fling at me. I just barely manage to duck down. More arrows come, diving into the wood. Frantic, I try to see where they’re coming from. It’s a pixie at the edge of the theater, hunkered down behind the seats. He only pops up to shoot. Issie’s parents are rushing at him, knives drawn. I can’t watch. Instead, I jump down into the space beneath the stage, landing soundly by Mrs. Nix. Pixies are still fighting them.
My father, the former pixie king, yells, “Go ahead. The tunnel. I can smell Nick that way. We’ll hold them off.”
“Dad.” I swallow. “Thank you.”
He smiles a tiny bit and snap kicks a pixie. “You are welcome.”
Mrs. Nix snorts.
“I love you. I love you both.” The words don’t seem enough.
“Zara! Go!” my father yells. “And tell your mother about this, okay? If the world doesn’t end? I’d like her to think of me more fondly.”
“You never give up, Dad.”
“Neither do you,” he grunts, grappling with another pixie. “It’s in the blood.”
I know it’s the last time I’ll see either of them, but still I run forward, down the cement hallway that leads from beneath the stage. My footsteps echo. I grab the mace I’ve stashed even though I know it probably won’t do any good.
There’s a wooden door at the end of the hall.
There’s a huge six-six pixie guarding the door. His teeth are plated with gold and they glint when he smiles.
“Finally,” he says, bringing his hands together and bending the fingers backward like he’s some actor in a movie getting ready for a bar brawl, which is actually incredibly intimidating even if it is a cliché. “I’ve been waiting forever.”
“You know what they say,” I quip. “We girls like to take our time, get ready for the big important events in our lives—hot dates, National Honor Society induction, killing pixie kings and their thugs.”
My hand clenches the pepper spray. The problem is that I have to be close to use it, which means with those long arms of his, he’ll get a good hit in. And now that I’m human again I might not be able to withstand it.
He yawns like I’m too boring for any more words. He lumbers toward me.
“Gasp! Scary.”
“You are just a little girl.” His voice seems like it deepens with the insult.
As I try to think of some witty comeback, he makes some sort of primal noise and lunges. I lift my arm and spray right in his face. The chemicals make contact. His skin sizzles, really sizzles. The smell of burned flesh makes me gag. His huge knuckled hands lift to his face, shaking, as he screams. I take my knife and plunge it into his chest, right through his Black Sabbath T-shirt, right in between the ribs and up a little. The force of blade meeting body battles through my arm. Stabbing someone hurts. I yank the knife back out as he falls. It worked better than the spears.
“Sorry,” I whisper as he thuds to the floor. “You chose the wrong side. Plus, you made ‘little girl’ sound like a bad thing. There is nothing wrong with being little or a girl.”
Quickly, I wipe the knife on my jeans to get the blood off. The jeans are goners anyway, full of bloodstains and dirt. I can’t believe I’m thinking about jeans. I can’t believe I lectured him on his terminology when he’s already dead. I’m a wreck. I’m such a wreck that my hand trembles as I turn the doorknob. But there’s no point in nerves, no point in trembling. Paul is dead. Austin. Cassidy is injured, and possibly dying. People are fighting out there, struggling with everything they have, doing things they’d never thought they’d do. I have to save Nick and Astley and then I have to save them, save the world, whatever the cost.
So I push open the door.
BEDFORD RADIO TRAFFIC
14: Holy God. I’ve got … You’ve got … It’s a disaster down here. We have kids with weapons. Blue humanoid things. Explosions. I need backup. We need Fire to respond.
Dispatch: 10-4. Will page out Fire. All available units, please respond to the Grand Auditorium. Unit 14 is reporting armed civilians, full-scale rioting, and fire. Proceed with caution.
14: The Feds are here. At least one is down. Again. I have an officer down.
Dispatch: I need the exact location, 14. Paging County Ambulance now.
14: I have … Oh … Stand by.
The door opens to a chamber that is not a room but more like a cave, which makes no sense. Why would there be a cave under the Grand? There’s no point in wondering. Wondering wastes time I don’t have.
The walls are some sort of white limestone-type rock, totally not typical of Maine, which is more full of gray granite. Stalactites hanging from the ceiling form sharp, white points. Another chamber leads off of it. That one is emitting a weird pinkish orange glow.
In the center of this room is Nick, human. Nick’s teeth are gritted and he’s bleeding everywhere. Blood runs down the side of his face, down his arms. He is a gory, awful mess and it’s so obvious that he can barely lift his head up because the effort is just that much. Still, he does. He does lift it. He mouths my name and I know it’s a warning. I whirl around as the door whips shut behind me, guarded by four large pixies.
“So, you finally come to give us what we want,” Frank says. He has a wound on his arm, claw marks. Nick must have fought him well.
I don’t answer.
“Put down your sword,” Frank says, and I guess just to prove how tough and strong he is, he pushes Nick forward and away from him. He falls on his knees and forearms in the center of the cavern. Then he flops to his side.
He reaches toward me. “Zara. Don’t.”
The words are all he has. His lips stop moving. The pain makes him shudder. Anger rips through me. How can I let him suffer? How can I let any of them suffer? And where is Astley? “First, leave Nick alone.”
“Hardly. He is our insurance. To make sure you free the god.”
Frustration gets the best of me and I roar, “I will never free the stupid god.”
Frank unleashes a patronizing smile. “Oh, you will. And you will survive freeing Loki, but without your pixie blood you will never be able to survive what is required to stop the Ragnarok.”
“Don’t do it, Zara.” Nick’s words are broken and pleading. I don’t need pixie senses to tell that he might be dying, that his energy is running out quickly. I can’t lose him again, not because he was my boyfriend, but because he is Nick, and Nick is wonderful and imperfect and bossy and good. Maybe I can buy some time.