an avenue of escape, but everything was chaos. The Weres appeared to be losing the battle, mainly because the customers, annoyed that the auction had been interrupted, had joined the trolls. Or, at least, most of them had. A few had decided to take advantage of the pandemonium to make off with some free merchandise. I saw a vampire, who had been the witch's chief competition for the djinn, make a dive for her. She glanced at him in annoyance and, with a word I couldn't hear, sent him flying across the room into a glass display case. The case broke, scattering shards everywhere and causing him to roar in rage. He didn't roar for long.
The case had held a group of charms and all the magic swirling around activated them. Individually, they wouldn't have been much of a problem for a vampire, but he obviously didn't know how to handle several dozen at once. His body was caught in wild tendrils of magic that wrapped around him like brightly colored ribbons, each with a different function. I couldn't see everything through the sparks and swirls, but a lot of the charms must have been baldness cures, because he ended up enmeshed in a cloud of long black strands that sprang from his own head. He tried to break free, ripping out handfuls of hair by the roots, but it grew back almost immediately. The witch doubled over in laughter.
I didn't wait to see what happened when he got loose, but punched the button to send the podium back underneath the stage. I insinuated myself into the small open area in the back, where the auctioneer's legs usually went, to ride it down. The service ramp used for unloading trucks with big items was adjacent to the lower level. If I was lucky, I could get out that way and circle around to my car while everyone was preoccupied with the fight.
It was a slow mechanism, but no one seemed to be paying me any attention. The only person nearby was the old mage who had seemed so enthralled by the rune. He had somehow fought his way back to the stage, and in the midst of the bedlam, had eyes only for the stone. He grabbed it, ignoring the banshee who immediately started up again, but he didn't take off with it as I'd expected. He started chanting something instead, holding the stone in front of him with a look of rapture on his face.
He was far too concentrated on whatever he was doing to see the Fey come up behind him. He tackled the mage around the ankles and the man hit the floor with a thud. The rune went flying, landing right in front of me. The Fey saw and his eyes widened. He leapt for it, shouting something, but I couldn't hear him. There was a flash, a weightless feeling, and the next thing I knew, I was sagging against a cold stone wall, struggling to lift my head.
My muscles ached and my tongue felt thick in my mouth. I tried to move and tottered, dizziness eating at the edges of my vision. What the hell?
A strong hand clapped over my mouth and I was abruptly pressed against the wall by a tall, muscular form. I couldn't see a damn thing - someone must have left the lights off downstairs - but the way my body reacted told me who it was. I started to protest, but a flash of light illuminated the area at the same moment, and I forgot what I'd been about to say.
The dragon's head stood in front of me, but behind it wasn't the familiar mess of Gerald's stockrooms. Instead, I saw a black sky, with menacing gray-green clouds that rumbled almost continually. Deadly silver streaks provided the only light, giving intermittent glimpses of a cobblestone street and a cluster of two-story wooden buildings.
Just as abruptly as I'd been slammed against the wall, I was dragged behind the podium. "Stay down," was hissed in my ear. I looked up as lightning flashed again to see the Fey from the auction house crouched beside me, looking grim.
"Where are we?" I demanded in an equally low tone.
"Faerie."
I took a minute to process that. "And exactly how did we get here?"
"The rune. The mage activated it and opened a portal just as I reached you."
Almost like it was adding an exclamation point to his sentence, something hit the front of