They’d been even more horrifying in the flesh, if that was what they were made of, than the O’Callaghan Books had said. Naturally, there were no pictures of them, because any O’Callaghan who’d seen them had been taken. What little description was given, likened them to a classic version of the Devil, hoofed, winged, and horned. And they were, sort of, but even worse. Tall, leathery-skinned, with glowing orange eyes like windows into hell, they had wings, sharp teeth, and long, lethal claws. And she wasn’t certain, but she thought she’d seen a tail. The only thing she didn’t understand was why, when they were so obviously capable of ripping their prey to shreds with their bare . . . er, handlike appendages, they’d been shooting at them with human guns.
When finally they stopped in a grassy clearing, Gabby couldn’t speak for several long moments. She was, she realized, soaked from head to toe. Water was gushing from her hair, plastering it to her face. She stood shaking in his arms, leaning back into the strength of his hard body, gulping one deep breath after another.
“Are you all right, ka-lyrra?” he said close to her ear.
“All right? All right?” Exploding from his grasp, she spun around to face him. Scraping the sodden hair from her face, she shouted, “Do I look all right? Of course I’m not all right. My life is falling apart around my ears and you ask me if I’m all right?”
Mascara was dripping down her cheeks, splattering on her shirt. She backed away from him, eyes narrowing. Her shoes squished with the movement and, as she peered uncomprehendingly down at them, a tadpole emerged from the leg of her jeans and flopped about on the ground.
“Eew!” She pointed a shaking finger at it. “A tadpole. I had a tadpole in my pants!”
“Lucky tadpole,” he murmured. Then, “When one sifts place, ka-lyrra, one comes out on top of whatever currently occupies that space. Which isn’t much of a problem if one also has all one’s other powers. But I don’t. We hit a lake somewhere around the ninety-seventh hop. And, contrary to popular belief, I don’t walk on water.”
Frantically running her hands up and down her drenched jeans, feeling about for any more creepy-crawlies, she hissed, “Oh, I hate you. I hate you.” So maybe she sounded like a child having a temper tantrum, but really, she seethed, ever since she’d met him she’d just been having one unsettling, disturbing, bizarre experience after another. She’d nearly had a heart attack on top of that church. Just when she’d begun to think she was getting the hang of it, that it wasn’t quite so awful being deconstructed then reconstructed again and again and again, she’d been gagging on foul-tasting, smelly, fishy, mossy water.
“No you don’t,” he said softly.
“I drank some of that lake! I might have choked on a fish or a frog or a . . . a . . . a turtle!”
“It is wisest to keep one’s mouth shut while sifting.”
She skewered him with a frosty stare. “Now you tell me.” Damn the fairy, anyway. There she stood, feeling ragtag and bedraggled, and he only looked more beautiful wet, all drippy and shimmery gold-velvet, his hair a wet tangle to his waist.
“Come, Gabrielle,” he said, extending his hand, “we must keep moving. They can track me by what little magic I’m using to sift, but only to a general vicinity. We need to keep sifting, to spread out their search.”
“Is there anything else it’s wisest to do that I should know about before we just pop off again?” She tucked her hands behind her back so he couldn’t grab her and just sift rather than answering her. Besides, she needed a minute to brace herself for the next bout of traveling in a manner that defied all the known laws of physics.
“You might try kissing me. Better my tongue than a frog, no?” Dark eyes sparking gold, he reached for her.
“Close contest,” she growled the lie, backing away, hands still tucked behind her back. She glanced pointedly at the flopping tadpole.
“What?”
“Take it back.”
“You’re kidding, right?” he said disbelievingly.
“Do we have time?”
He considered that. “Yes, but—”
“Then, no I’m not.”
“That lake was three hops ago,” he said impatiently.
“If you don’t take it back it’s going to die, and while you may think it’s just a pathetic little thing with an abbreviated little life that hardly even signifies in the fairy scheme of things, I’ll bet in the tadpole scheme of things it’s really looking forward to becoming a frog. Now take it back. A life is a life. I don’t care how tiny an almighty fairy thinks it is.”