Water flows, after all, I philosophized as Anyan smiled at me. Encouraged by the barghest’s attentions, I tried something different then, and added another coating of my power behind our shields…

Like two-ply toilet paper, I thought with an internal giggle. With which we are gonna wipe some Alfar ass…

“Nice,” Anyan murmured as he revved the engine.

“Vroom vroom,” I replied, waggling my eyebrows at him before turning to the backseat. “Ya might want to fasten yourself in,” I told the goblin. “We are going for a ride.”

And with that, we were off. We kept pace with one another, three abreast, as we pumped power into our magical battering ram.

Immediately I could feel pressure emanating from Phaedra. It was strong enough that our rental cars were bucking a bit, and I rammed more force into our defenses, trying to make them as offensive as possible.

We were picking up the pace, using the kinetic energy of our lurching vehicles to enhance our own shields and give us some momentum, but Phaedra’s power was stifling. All three cars were grinding down, engines churning but the vehicles slowing until, finally, we were barely moving forward. I started to sweat, both with effort and with fear… We were so close! The thought of not making it to the Compound, when we’d come so far and seen so much, nearly destroyed me.

But then, like a rock star parting some groupie’s thighs, there was an opening in Phaedra’s force. It was just large enough for our car to fit through, and it looked like an obvious trap. Except for one thing…

“That’s not Alfar power,” Anyan said, his nose twitching once, hard.

“Nope. That’s what Blondie’s power feels like,” I told the barghest. He frowned, but for some reason I wasn’t surprised. This wasn’t the first time she’d popped up when we needed her. She obviously had some stake in our mission; I just wish she’d tell us what that stake was.

“Do we trust it?” he asked.

“I don’t see why not,” I said. “She could have killed me, and you, at least twice. But she didn’t. Plus, I get a good vibe from her.”

“You get a good vibe?” the barghest asked drily.

“Oh, c’mon, big boy.” I grinned. “Trust me.”

Anyan cocked one thick eyebrow at me, and I couldn’t help it.

“C’mon, puppy, trust me… and I’ll be sure to give you a treat later.”

The look that Anyan gave me then was hot, and fierce, and made my whole body tingle. My libido nearly passed out as my virtue held up its hands in defeat.

And then he pressed on the gas, shooting our SUV through the narrow tunnel in Phaedra’s barrier made by Blondie’s own weird force.

I held my breath until we were through, when I let out a triumphant shout. Phaedra was standing there, looking equally confused and pissed off, while our friends had stopped their cars and bailed out, ready to keep Phaedra busy while we got away.

And there, on the side of the road, just past where Phaedra had made her stand, was Blondie. She was wearing the wifebeater and big jeans again, although her hair was spiked up in an outrageous blonde Mohawk, tipped with fuchsia.

She gave me a thumbs-up then turned back toward Phaedra, a spring in her step as she approached the Alfar.

I grinned and shooed Anyan forward as he started to slow down.

“We should stop, find out what she is,” he complained.

“Not now. Later. Now we have a Jarl-fish to fry.”

My voice was adamant, and Blondie had already walked off. So, with a last backward glance and a sigh, the barghest obeyed.

Such a good puppy, I thought, my hands itching to touch him. But touching him still seemed like such a dream come true that I didn’t trust my freedom to take such liberties.

So we drove, and drove, and soon enough we were parked outside the Compound.

The first bullet nearly took off my ear, it was so close. I sat there, confused—I’d never been shot at in my life—until Anyan pulled me down to huddle in the SUV’s wheel well.

“Shields, Jane… and manifest them.”

So that’s what we did, the barghest and I: manifested a solid, bullet-stopping shield around our car that absorbed the next spray of bullets. They hung there in midair, a more frightening sight in their snub-nosed physicality than any of the magics I’d ever seen.

I hate guns, I thought wearily as Anyan finally pointed to a clump of decorative bushes.

“Graeme!” he shouted, and then his strong air magics blew past us, carrying a pulse that set the bushes on fire. The wax-faced incubus came hopping out from behind the bushes, only to be greeted by my own little show of force.

If I can merge my magic with our shields to strengthen them, I thought, what would happen if I did the same to Graeme’s?

So I tried it, and the results were magnificent. Where my power could thread between cracks in our force to help us form a tight defensive barrier, I used it like a molasses trap for flies when I threaded it through Graeme’s shields. Inspired a bit by his mistress Phaedra’s powerful Alfar web she’d used against us in Boston all those months ago, I wove my power through his, manifested it, and then pulled it tight. The incubus froze, unable to move, and I smiled like a little girl on Christmas morning.

“Impressive,” Anyan grunted. “How long will it hold?”

“Not long. We should get inside. Ready, Avery?”

The goblin nodded from the backseat then turned to rootle around in the very back of the SUV. Pulling out a tire iron, he smiled. “Now I’m ready.”

We bailed out of the car and started up the Compound’s wide steps. We pushed through the doors, and I felt that same strange feeling of being watched that I’d felt the first time I’d come here. This time, however, I recognized it for what it was: a magical probe that assessed us as friend or foe.

The magic drifted off, quickly enough, having determined we were friends. It did linger a bit on me, as if unsure what to make of my halfling composition. But pretty soon it let up, and we were free to move forward.

Except for the irate spriggan blocking our path.

“Bloody hell, Fugwat,” Anyan swore. “Won’t you just go away.”

I thought that was an awfully polite way to greet someone who wanted to kill us, but I didn’t chide Anyan. After all, it was always a good idea to show a strong collective front when facing either children or sworn enemies.

“Yes, won’t you just go away!” I echoed, sounding rather silly.

Anyan shot me an annoyed look just as Fugwat sprang. He didn’t get very far, however, for Avery the goblin calmly walloped him, with tremendous force, over the head with his tire iron, causing the spriggan to collapse in a heap.

“Well done,” I said, giving the goblin an admiring glance.

He shrugged, his yolk-yellow eyes impassive. “We are physically the strongest of all the factions,” he intoned, using a lecturing voice.

“Still,” I murmured as we crept past the spriggan’s prone form.

“Quite,” he said drily.

Soon enough we were inside the Compound, walking through the white room with the elemental mosaics I’d so admired my first time here. And then we were pushing through the main doors, into the grand hall of the court.

It was dinnertime, and it seemed we were interrupting a gala shindig. Many of the beings at the Compound suffered from the boredom of an immortality spent in servitude, and so the Alfar were always throwing parties. I’d been so impressed by all the finery, and so eager to please, the first time I had been here. But now? It looked pathetic: everyone all gussied up to sit at the same table with the same people they’d sat next to for generations of human lives.

We’d entered quietly enough, but just walking down that central aisle brought us so much attention you’d think we were doing a naked tango.

And we must have made quite the incongruous picture. Amid all the splendor of the Alfar court, Anyan looked like a wayward biker, while I trotted next to him, looking like some college student he’d kidnapped from the library where she was studying for finals.

“Avery?” came a voice in front of us as a goblin pushed through the crowd.

“Father,” came the droll voice of our “doctor.”

“What are you doing? Why are you here?” Avery’s father looked panicked, his yellow eyes round as saucers and his black-clawed hands twitching nervously.

“It has to end, Father,” was the son’s only response. “You are my father. I loved you and trusted you. I followed you into hell and I’ve become someone I hate. Your beliefs, Father, are wrong. And they’re like an infection—rotting, spreading. It has to end, and we’re here to end it.”

Avery’s father grimaced, and then he started forward as if he would try to confront his son. But Anyan stared him down, and he soon backed away. Then he was running, straight out of the hall and, I presumed, out of the Compound itself. I really hoped somebody stopped him, as we might need the father to back up the son’s testimony.

“Anyan Barghest!” called the court herald as we neared the dais. “Avery Goblin! And Jane True!”