2 Deja Blue (11 page)

Jeremy’s eyes popped wide
and he laughed again, “What did you just say Miss Marbles?”

I swallowed the ice cream in my mouth and sighed, “Just. Get.
On.
With.
It.”
I enunciated each word.

“Okay, so here’s the deal,” Brennan started
,
as he took the last lick of ice cream from his spoon and tossed his empty bowl and spoon into the trash can. “I found
Grobel
and spoke to him. He
wouldn’t reveal to me who hired him to…ah…take care of you. B
ut, as I told you before, some
Troll
s are known to be very greedy.
So,
I was able to br
ibe him with some very precious…
ah…items…
to hold off on his ‘mission’.  He’s agreed to stall and
said that he would
let his ‘employers’ know that you have been hidden and
that
protection spells have been cast upon you, making it more difficult for him to carry out his job of trying to…
ahh
…assassinate you.” I cringed at Brennan’s use of the phrase, but listened intently while he continued. “He will tell them that he is still in pursuit of you, and although it won’t solve our problem, it will at least buy us time to figure out who is holding the grudge against you.”

“So, how much time are we talking
about
here? I mean, how long do you think you guys can actually keep me safe?”

Anya spoke up, “First of all, our protection spells are very powerful, especially against those who belong to the Earthen Court.  You must trust us, Ruby, when we tell you that we will keep you safe.
Grobel
told Brennan
that
he
would stall as long as he could. A
nd
,
now that he knows
that
we know about him, he’s afraid to do anything to you. He would suffer great consequences as a traitor to the Earthen Royal Court. He is precariously balancing on both sides of the fence right now.”

Brennan nodded and snickered, “Yeah. He’ll get his ass kicked by whoever hired him in the Water Court if he doesn’t
follow through with the job, and he’ll get his ass kicked by the Earthen Court if he
does
follow through. But, to answer your question,
Grobel
could probably stall for at least two or three months. He’s quite the talker. That
Troll
could sell a boat without p
addles to a fisherman in the de
sert.”

“He’s quite the slime-ball,” Anya added disgustingly.

“Sounds like this guy’s a
shagnasty
used
-
car salesman from hell,” added Jeremy.

“Yeah.
A
shagnasty
used car salesman who’s trying to kill me.” I noted somberly. I had no choice but to trust Anya and Brennan. What else was I supposed to do? It’s not like I could go to the police and say, “Excuse me, Officer, there’s a creepy-stalker
Troll
who’s trying to kill me because I slayed a dragon.” Yeah. That would go over really well. Jeremy put his arm around me and rubbed my shoulders, “It’ll be okay, Ruby. You’ve got all of us to protect you. I told you, I’m like the fashion-forward Ron
Weasl
e
y
!”  He joked. He just loved
Harry Potter
…and the fact that he finally got to be invo
lved in this mystical world of F
airies and
Troll
s was really exciting for him.

I tried to smile, “Right. Leo must have been on to something calling me Scooby all those years. It’s like I really am stuck in an episode of
Scooby Doo
. I’ve got Velma, Fred and Shaggy looking after me. All we need now is the Mystery Machine.”

Jeremy’s mouth dropped open as he shoved my shoulders, pouted
,
and gave me his best hurt-look face. Brennan scowled at me from across the table, “Nice.
Real nice.
I save you from drowning and protect you from a
Troll
, and I get called Fred from Scooby Doo.” Anya sat silently by, smiling at my sarcastic comment. She
understood
me. She knew I was only half-serious. Besides, Velma is the smart one.

Just then, Jeremy spoke up,
practically screaming at us and
freaking out a bit
while he
waved his hands around and pointed his finger at himself, “Wait! You mean I’m Shaggy?
I’m
Shaggy?!? I thought I was Fred! Fred’s the good-looking one, right? You did
not
just call me Shaggy.” We all burst into laughter at that. I shook my head, sighing, “Jeremy, you slay me.”

“Apparently, not as
well
as you slay dragons,” he answered.

“But
,
back to Fred, uh, I mean Brennan,” (Brennan kicked me under
the table.) “Ouch!” I yelped, “
G
eesh
, I was just kidding. Anyhow, what I was
gonna
say was, you did save me from nearly drowning, but you also said I was
now indebted to the
Mermaid
. I seem to recall you saying
that
you had an idea about that.” I hedged.

“Oh yeah!”
Brennan
nodded
enthusiastically. “Actually, once I heard the entire situation from Celestine, and
discover
e
d t
hat
it was that greedy punk
Grobel
behind the schemes to get you out of the picture, I figured I’d
have an easy way for you to re
pay the life-debt to her.”

I waved my hands impatiently, urging him to continue, “
Aaaanndd
???”

“Well, it involves bribery, of course.” Brennan answered.

“That’s it? You’re going to bribe the
Mermaid
?” Jeremy asked.

Brennan gave a look of disdain, shaking his head, “Of course not. You can’t bribe
Mermaid
s.” (No, no, of course you can’t…How the hell would we know? Ugh. I kept my mouth shut, but was getting more and more irritated at Brennan’s lack of
detail
. It’s not like they’d given me a Fairy-World Handbook with all
of the rules.
G
eesh
.)
Brennan darted his eyes over to me, giving me a warning look.
My eyes widened as I said,
“
Wh
aa
at
?
I didn’t say anything!” I guiltily replied
,
using my best
I’m-innocent
expression.

“Oh. You
said
it alright,” Brennan answered smugly.

My mouth hung open. “No. I didn’t.”

“Yeah.
Ya
did,” he replied.

“No. I’m pretty sure I didn’t say a word.”

“That’s right, you didn’t
say
a word.” Brennan retorted. 

That was
it.
I exploded.
“I wasn’t
trying
to use some weird
Fairy
telepathy! How the hell do I know what I’m doing?! You guys never tell me anything!” I can’t even have private thoughts anymore without some
Fairy
eavesdropping.
And
,
I still d
on’t
know how I
am
supposed to repay the debt to the
Mermaid
. This was the
most frustrating situation I’d ever been in, and I was
going to get even nastier
if Brennan didn’t start giving me some better answers.

Anya spoke up, “Ruby, your
Fairy
telepathy is new. You’ll get the hang of it, I promise. But
,
right now, when you’re very emotional…
happy, sad, angry…
whatever, you tend to…
ahhh
…
broadcast your thoughts.”

That did it.
I was pissed. “It’s not my
freakin
’ fault that you guys are
listenin
’ in on my head. Stay out of it! I don’t know what the hell I’m doing, so cut me some slack!”
I gave Brennan the evil eye
and focused on my
Fairy
-talk,
directing it right into his pea-sized, little brain.
“
Okay Mister Nosey-pants
Eavedropper
. How ‘bout listening in on this
,
y
ou obnoxious, cocky
, smug
…
stupid…
m
other
fu
…
” Before I finished the thought, Brennan jumped up from the table shouting at me in some foreign language. I think it was
Fairy
…or…something. It sounded kind of Irish.
Maybe Celtic?
  But whatever it was, it sounded like something from another time.
And
,
it sounded harsh. He was definitely using worse words than I was. I didn’t know what he was saying, but I knew it wasn’t nice.
He was so mad that
I thought his eyes were going to pop out of his head.

Jeremy interrupted, holding up his hands, like he was the cop appr
oaching some scary, whacked-out-on-
crack
nut job, “
Okayokayokayokayyyyyy
..
.why don’t we all just calm down. Let’s just dial it down a notch, shall we?
Chill.
Your
.
Grill.
”
I got the sinking
feeling that I was the whacked-
out nut job. I slumped down
over the table, burying my head in my arms and let out a big sigh. I was on the verge of tears and felt overwhelmed with everything that had happened in the past two days. So much for that calming spell Anya placed on me. She’d better give me a double dose of another one, and quick. 

Anya spoke up again, reaching across the table to rub my arm. I looked up at her with my teary eyes. “
It’s
okay, Ruby, really. It’s not like we hear everything you’re thinking. It’s only happened once or twice before. Please, please,
please
don’t even worry about it.” She shot Brennan a look and he spoke up,
quickly calming his demeanor.
“Yeah, yeah.
Forget it. Do you
wanna
hear my stellar idea about how you’re
gonna
pay back the
Mermaid
?”

I let out a big sigh. (Not really, I thought to myself…hopefully.) “Okay,” I said as I sat back up and wiped my eyes. “Lay it on me.”

Chapter 13

Brennan’s pale ice-
blue eyes seemed to twinkle with mischief as he smiled wide, showing off his dimples.
Huh. I never really noticed those before.
“Before I tell you my plan, I’ve
gotta
fill you in on Celestine’s problem.”

“Right, I remember,” I nodded, “You said she was in love with a
Troll
, and that’s forbidden because he’s a
Troll
and not a
M
er
-person or whatever, right?”

Brennan nodded, “Yes. She is in love with the
Troll
Bexin
. His brother is
Grobel
. That’s why she came over to investigate near the jetty the other day. From a distance, she thought
Grobel
was
Bexin
. Instead, she found you being crushed under the boulders.” He grimaced at that last part.

I looked over at Jeremy, “Yeah, apparently
M
erpeople
don’t like to ruin their bloodline by
hookin
’ up with a
lowly
Earthener
.” I spoke the last words with fake-disgust.

Jeremy shook his head, “So eighteenth century,
doncha
think?” He
tsk’d
tsk’d
his tongue.

“Tell me about it!” Anya exclaimed.
“No fins, no wedding.
Unless…” she trailed off, looking to Brennan to fin
ish her sentence. “…Unless the C
hallenger to
the
Grá
mo
Chroí
Dúshlán
is triumphant.”