The riders are elves like Neeve. Faster and lighter than a human. All of them have decades of weapons experience since they live so damn long,” he said.
“Not today,” I muttered. Both Neeve and Caeco heard me, but I didn’t care.
“You are just a boy—you know nothing,” Neeve said. “You get my Speaker killed and I will finish you myself.”
Schweinehund! And we were back to German.
I couldn’t help it… I laughed. “Lady, you got no idea what goes on under my skin. Big shot elf. Your countrymen? Associates? They’re threatening my only family and one of my friends and they’re doing it at my home. On my territory. You don’t ever, ever come onto my ground and think you’re going to get away with that.”
“Idiot boy, they have an army,” she said, arms crossed, hard eyes meeting mine in the rearview.
“They better. Forty or so isn’t worth the gas to get here,” I said, pulling off the road and stopping Beast.
Everyone looked around in confusion, not seeing Rowan West or a parking lot or really anything but a small paved area with trees all around. I got out and the others exited both Beast and Mack’s pickup, looking at me expectantly.
“Where are we? Where is the restaurant?” Jetta asked.
“Right over there. You just can’t see it ‘cause my aunt powered up the wards,” I said, looking at Neeve as I said it. “The wards hide the property, act like a Star Trek shield, and make people forget there was ever a restaurant here.”
I picked up a stick and threw it at the restaurant that only I could see. The stick exploded into flame, vanishing in a puff of smoke and ash. “I added a few touches of my own while my aunt worked the camouflage and Forget Me spells. Let’s go; Aunt Ash will want to take down the wards in time for the dinner crowd.”
“Aren’t we going in?” Mack asked.
“No, I don’t want to breach the wards. It’ll cause them to fall completely. Besides, I gotta throw some trespassers off my property. Nobody needs to go with me; you can all stay here,” I said. My friends looked at me like I was an idiot, then started to gather weapons.
Caeco had her Estwing axe and at least two big combat blades, Jetta and Mack were unlimbering a pair of well-used but well cared for Ruger Mini-14 rifles, Ashley accepting a pistol from her father, who still had three guns under his Carhartt jacket. I glimpsed two big Glocks with extended mags in shoulder holsters and some brand of 1911 .45 which looked custom on his belt.
“You have any steel-tipped ammo for those Rugers?” Ian asked the brother-sister team.
“Yeah, Caeco texted me in the car. We’ve got a whole bunch of cheap Russian steel clad ammo we use for target practice,” Jetta said, holding up a thirty round mag with the distinctive dark lacquered cased ammo visible in it.
“Good. You’ll be amazed at the effect it has on them. My .45 ammo and Ashley’s .40 are hollowpoints with iron filings glued into the cavities. Works awesome,” Ian said, pulling a massive Bowie knife from a hidden sheath on his back, inspecting it and putting it away. Neeve just stood with arms crossed, frowning, her weird weapon bracelets wrapped around both wrists.
“Ready? Where’s Justin?” I asked. On the far side of Mack’s truck, a massive black bear stood up, shook itself, looked me in the eye, and grunted. Okay. All accounted for, including Justin, in fur.
“There’s a well-cut trail that follows the edge of the wards and goes all the way around the property. We’ll walk it till we find this Hunt and then we’ll send them home, either on their feet or in body bags,” I said, already aware of where the intruders were.
“They sorta melt,” Ian said.
“What?” I asked.
“If you kill a denizen of Fairie here on Earth, they melt, turn into little sparkly lights, and evaporate. I think the same thing happens to humans who die over there,” he explained.
“Oh, so no bodies. Cool,” I said. “What does this Hunt want with Ariel anyway? I thought her brand of precognition was mostly linked to the portals?”
Ashley cleared her throat and looked pointedly at Neeve. The elf woman seemed majorly reluctant to speak to any of us, and me in particular. After a moment of enduring Ashley’s relentless stare, she spoke.
“Our world has three major factions. The Winter Court, ruled by Queen Morrigan, the Southern Court, ruled by Queen