Elves vs. Aliens

9: The Joker and the Thief

Eagle sat in an Avalon jail cell with at least one potential cannibal. The cops had taken all his knives–all the knives he had left, not that he had many after the circus full of bad guys–and left Ushi and him in a room with a scuffed plastic wall instead of bars. Bars, he supposed, would be inhumane. The fey were not joking around about the iron allergy.

A guy with predator energy watched him like lunch. He was pale, with a mouth full of pointed teeth and a rusty brown hat that smelled of old blood. His eyes pointed in opposite directions, but both clearly focused on Eagle. Eagle didn’t doubt he could take the guy if he had to. He had to wonder, though: was he immortal, too? Would he just keep coming and coming like some kind of alleyway nightmare, no matter how many times Eagle put him down?

A city full of gods. A void ship full of gods was bad enough.

Ushi sat across from Eagle, leaning his head against the wall behind him. His throat was long and brown and tempting. No one had placed a hand on him during the fight, and the cops had been weirdly careful of his person even when they zip-tied his wrists together. All the coal black hair was yet unmussed. He’d taken off his suit coat and tie before rolling his white sleeves up to his elbows, showing a pair of beaded bracelets around one wrist. He was sexy as hell and twice as bad for you. Eagle had heard plenty about what happened to guys like Ushi in prison, but the creature with the teeth looked everywhere else. Prison seemed to be scared of Ushi.

Eagle was tempted to ask why. He had a feeling it was more about that black pit of need he sensed when Ushi touched him than it was about all the plant magic. Clearly, these criminals knew something Eagle didn’t. He didn’t ask what. It seemed a bad idea to offend a wizard who might actually be some kind of dark god.

Overly cheerful, Ushi said, “I’ve never been arrested before.”

Eagle snorted and thought of Dreamport. “Lucky you.”

Ushi sniffed. The smile faded. “It certainly wasn’t luck.”

On the other side of the clear plastic door, he could see the constable’s department scuttling around: people–beings–each different from the last but somehow identical in their black uniforms with their shiny buttons. They wore badges like the cops on most worlds, but that was where the similarities ended. A woman with bright red skin, forked tongue flickering, wrestled a man with flowers in his beard past Eagle’s cell. A man with feathers where his hair should be stalked past on chicken feet in that way only cops could walk.

Ushi tilted his head sideways. “Who did you say is coming for you?”

He wasn’t certain anybody was coming for him. When he’d told them his emergency contact was the High King and his address was the White Palace, a fey with the face of a bullfrog and no neck had laughed in his face.

Eagle shook his head. “Do you have anybody coming for you?”

Something sad flashed across Ushi’s expression and was just as abruptly gone. “I don’t have an emergency contact. I just hope they let us out before Monday. I’ve got a class to teach first thing.”

Eagle sighed. “Look, Professor, I’m really sorry I got you into all of this.”

A bright, white grin that showed off those murderous dimples spread across Ushi’s face. “Nonsense! I haven’t had so much fun in ages. And at least we weren’t the only ones arrested. I daresay, those Pixie Dust manufacturers will spend much more time here than we ever will.”

Mournfully, Eagle asked, “What do you think will happen to the fair–er, the pixies?”

Ushi blinked with surprise. In an unexpectedly gentle tone, he said, “Why, they’ll be taken straight to the hospital until they recover. Don’t worry for them. They’ll be just fine after the healers have at them.”

Pixies in a hospital? Would wonders never cease. These people believed humans were some kind of lesser being, but they had a hospital for pixies. People in Rothganar mostly just hit them with rolled-up newspapers. Maybe all the fey understood the little things when they talked. Maybe he was the only one who heard them singing his name all the time.

Through the corner of his eye, Eagle noticed one cop stopping dead in her tracks. Another followed her lead. Eagle rose, curious, wondering what they were staring at.

“What’s going on?” Ushi lifted his head from the wall, finally alert.

Eagle gestured him quiet, then drifted toward the plastic wall. All across the room, people paused their movements, turning their faces in the same direction, falling silent. Something big was happening.

Even the hum of the fluorescent lights seemed quieter. He heard Beri, soft and clear. For the first time he realized that the High King rarely raised his voice because in Avalon, he didn’t have to. “Where is he?”

Someone, Eagle thought it was the pop-eyed frog person, stammered something.

Beri’s voice continued, “The paperwork, then. We haven’t got all day.”

Ushi stood. “Who is that?”

Eagle shook his head. “They didn’t believe me and neither will you.”

The entire constabulary stayed quiet, oh so quiet, for a good fifteen minutes. And then, behind the frog-man, Beri strode down the hall like the hero in one of his stupid movies, so much larger than life he was almost in slow motion: The blue suit was immaculate and open at the throat; blond hair glowed, his coat gusted around his ankles with the movement of his stride.

He pulled off a pair of sunglasses that revealed a beautiful face and gunmetal eyes. Eagle swallowed hard, wanting so bad it hurt. Beri’s eyes met his through the plastic. “Eagle Eye, did we not tell you to stay out of trouble?”