CHAPTER 82

When Quetzalli finally let go, the kitsune's hair now stood up in a few places, and the fur on her tails had poofed out. Yuki looked at Mike with a mixture of surprise and disgust.

"Hey, since you're here anyway, I need your help with something." He ran his hands through her hair, taking a moment to rub the spot between her ears. The static discharged and her hair fell back into place. "Can you hold these for me? I'll let you know when I need them."

She looked down at the horseshoes, then took them. "What are we doing?"

"You'll see." He had Quetzalli move a safe distance from the bushes, then came back and lifted the bag of salt. He tilted the bag up and did his best to pour the salt evenly over the roots of the plant, wondering how long it would be until something happened. With Abella soaring overhead and Yuki casually spinning one of the horseshoes in her fingers nearby, he hoped that his hunch was right.

"So, anyway, I wanted to talk about my plans for the faerie queen," he loudly announced. "I've given it a lot of thought, but I think I have the perfect weapon to destroy her once and for all."

Quetzalli tilted her head with curiosity, but remained silent. Yuki's ears twitched, and she gave him a long hard look. Her gaze went to the horseshoes in her hands, back to Mike, and then over to where he had dumped a bunch of salt.

"I am so interested to hear about this weapon," she said, her grip tightening on the horseshoes.

"Good. Because I want to show it to you." He stuck his hand in his pocket and pulled out a vial of glitter that was leftover from his trip. Cupping his hands together, he looked around and then moved next to Yuki and cracked his hands open. "I'm sure you recognize it from the Vault."

"How were you able to handle such a device?" she asked, her eyes flicking toward the bushes. The soil had shifted, causing a circle to open in the salt.

"It wasn't easy," he told her, then closed his hands. "But if this device were to get in the wrong hands, it would easily destroy everything we know and love."

"Well, then, you should probably put it somewhere safe until...until..." Her ears twitched again, and she frowned at the bushes.

He heard it now, too—a sound similar to stones being ground together.

"I'm going to check it out," he told her, then turned toward the bushes and fake stumbled, the vial falling out of his hands.

The ground erupted, and a squat, fat creature made of stone jumped into the air and snagged the vial in its claws.

"All Hail the Faerie Queen!" it shrieked at them. The creature looked like a demonic hedgehog made out of rock, and stood about a foot tall. It leered at them with sharp, pointy teeth, but the smile disappeared when Yuki nailed it between the eyes with a horseshoe.

"Abella!" Mike called, and the gargoyle descended, using her feet to grab the little stone creature and carry it into the sky. However, the creature rapidly expanded, dragging Abella down until she crashed into the bushes.

Muttering in a language Mike didn't recognize, the creature rolled its body into a ball and charged toward them. The air chilled instantly and large ice spears formed, diverting the ball away from the group and across the yard. A pair of nearby centaurs ran for cover as the creature unrolled itself, using its foot long claws to spin in a tight circle, its angry visage focused on Mike.

It didn't see the stone lion that had come to life that now descended on it from above. The lion's body was surrounded in a blue aura and it slammed into the demon like a meteor impacting the moon.

The creature exploded in a shower of stone and glitter, its rocky remains raining across the front yard. The lion shook itself clean of the debris, the air around its fiery mane rippling with heat before it returned to its post at the front of the yard.

"What the hell was that?" Yuki asked. When he looked at her, he saw the front door of the house had been opened, and the others had come outside to see what was going on.

"It was a type of earth elemental." Sulyvahn appeared with a strange grin on his face. He knelt down to pick up a fragment of the elemental. "Eats magic, this one. They normally dinna get this big."

"You knew, didn't you?" Mike asked.

The dullahan shrugged. "Doesn't matter. Ye found it all the same." He tossed the fragment on the ground and kicked it. "Nasty little bugger has been here longer than I have, that's fer sure and for certain. If I coulda told ye about it, I would have."

Mike appraised the dullahan, wondering if he should take the chance. It was the gnome that they had spoken to in the fae realm that made him think of it. Sulyvahn had tried his best to warn them all away from the queen, and they had ignored him and walked into a trap. He had also been trying to hint at the creature hiding in the bushes, but couldn't come out and tell them directly that the creature had been planted there. What the queen said, went. That was what he had learned in the faerie realm, and he was willing to bet that Sulyvahn couldn't do much else while the queen kept a watchful eye.

"Why you?" Mike asked. "The queen is honoring an obligation, but why send you specifically? Why not some other dullahan that can keep his mouth shut?"