Monster Hunter Memoirs: Grunge - eARC (26 page)

More money had changed hands. For a considerable sum the yakuza had come up with all the information and IDs we needed. In retrospect that was the best head removal I’d ever done. The gift that kept on giving. As long as we had available cash.

We were both pulling dollies with fifty-five gallon drums on them. Most of those had gone to the new blue plastic type. Finding actual steel oil drums had been the hardest part of the whole endeavor.

Two because one was filled with oil. The other was empty. They were functionally identical. We’d simply put the princess in the empty one. It was lined with foam rubber and had discreet air-holes the better to keep our rescuee alive.

The one question I really had was if there was some sort of mystical tracker on the fey. If there was, mom might notice right away when she dropped off the grid. That would be bad. I wasn’t prepared to face momma fey, yet.

Yes, we were winging some of this.

“It’s on the company.”

“Okay,” the guard said. “Go on through.”

First hurdle crossed.

CHAPTER 19

We knew where the elevators were from the schematics and how to find our way to the small entrance to the bell tower.

Fortunately, there was a maintenance room under the tower. ’Cause this was one place where we had a hitch. There was no way to actually get the drum up into the tower.

The door under the tower was locked. The guard hadn’t asked us if we needed the key. Presumably there was a maintenance supervisor somewhere with the key. In fact, we even had his name. No way we were going to bluff our way through that.

The empty drum also contained bolt cutters.

I climbed up the stairs, cut the bolt off and lifted the lid.

The interior of the bell tower was cramped. Most of it was taken up by a large set of bells. They were in a ring with a small space in the middle for the hatch. The actual mechanism was above the bells themselves. If we’d actually been here to change the oil we’d have needed a very long line and a pump.

What I didn’t see was a Faerie princess.

“Cooee?” I said. “Anybody home?”

“See her?” Jesse asked.

“Does it
sound
like it?”

I climbed up and made my way between a couple of the smaller bells, looking around. No faerie princess.

“Gimme the sprayer,” I said.

When we’d discussed the question of the missing princess with the Nelsons they’d suggested invisibility as a possible reason. It was possible the princess was bound to invisibility as long as anyone was up there. Throw in silence and immobility and she would be ignored by any workmen as well as unable to escape when the occasional maintenance crew went up there.

For which we had a solution. The Akkoran solution was supposed to reveal some kinds of invisible objects. It had required making a trip to China Town to get it prepared. And we were assuming that it was the actual Akkoran solution. It was just a bunch of herbs as far as I could tell.

I took the hand sprayer and started spritzing the area around the outside of the bells.

Sure enough, half way around the circle I hit pay-dirt.

“Oh, crap,” I said, blanching at the sight of the fey princess.

Take a four foot tall bat. Take off the wings. Mottled, wrinkly, green-gray skin like a ghoul. Make the face uglier. Stretch out the snout till it was more of a proboscis. Give it really weird, tilted, insectile purple eyes. Long, skinny, arms with ugly, taloned hands.

On top of being imprisoned she was nude. You don’t want to know what the body looked like. I seriously wanted to scratch my eyeballs out. I was open-minded but, God’s left tooth, no! I started to understand the legend of the Gorgon which I’m pretty sure, now, must have just been a fey.

There was no question in my mind that fey were something alien to earth. The description above does not cover it. It was simply alien. I had the same reaction as most people’s reactions to a spider. “That is just
wrong
!”

“You okay?” Jesse said.

“Found her. Trying not to retch. Fey are serious ugly.”

“She might be able to hear you.”

“Fine. If she doesn’t appreciate my opinion of her appearance perhaps she’ll appreciate getting out of here.”

I tentatively touched one of the skinny arms. I really didn’t want to, again it was like touching a spider, but we were here for a job. Pulling on her wrist showed that she could move. Pushing down on her head caused her to bend over. It was like a mannequin.

“We can do this,” I said, picking up the feynequin and trying not to scream. This job really is a bit tough on the sanity. “Get ready to catch her. And try not to scream.”

* * *

Turned out there were containers that were already made up as living spaces. The one we had obtained had steel doors, the better to keep Momma’s magic from finding the princess, and a nice interior. We’d added steel screens over all the air intakes and outlets. I wasn’t sure if fey magic could detect anything through there. Based on gnolls we’d discussed waste issues. The waste receptacles could be hooked up to either a sewer system or a chemical waste system. We were planning on dumping those far from where we eventually put the trailer.

We’d gotten the drum into the trailer, gotten the feynikin out and set her up. But she was still a feynikin. I was worried about how long she could remain that way. She didn’t seem to be breathing.

Finally, we just left the trailer. We’d set up a double door system, steel mesh, as a magic lock to keep big momma from noticing human entries and exits.

“What do we do now?” Jesse asked.

“Stay on plan. We take her back to Seattle. We’ll figure out the feynikin…”

There was a banging on the wall of the container as I said that and we both started.

“Like, how did I get here?” a female voice shrieked from inside the trailer. At least I thought that was what she said. It was muffled. “This is like totally like bogus! What’s your damage? If you think you can like kidnap a princess of the fey you’re, like, a total retard! Like, let me out of here! Like, now!”

“I think our feynikin is awake.” The banging was coming through the walls of the trailer so she wasn’t at the door. We could open up and finally speak to our rescued princess.

The moment I opened the door and stepped through, though, the banging stopped. And the solution had worn off so I couldn’t even see her. Which was fine by me. There’s ugly then there’s fey ugly.

“Well,” Jesse said. “That’s a bit of a difficulty. Whenever someone comes into her presence, she must be enspelled to freeze and disappear. When we leave, she’s mobile.”

“Noticed,” I said, frowning. “That’s going to make negotiating difficult.”

“You could say that. There is one good point.”

“What?” I asked, frustrated. I knew there would be hitches but this one was unexpected. It’s not the things you don’t know in this business that get you. It’s the things you don’t know you don’t know. I was having to wonder how many of those there were in this operation.

“She’s not going to remember how you described her.”

* * *

The answer was as simple as an intercom. It took a bit to install. Then we left. There was a mike on the exterior and it started squawking immediately.

“I, like, demand you let me go like
right now
!” Princess Shallala shouted. “When like my mother finds out about this you are going to
totally
like be in trouble! I know you’re like
listening
!”

“Calm down, Princess,” I said, soothingly. “You’re not being kidnapped. You’re being rescued.”

“Like, this totally doesn’t look like being rescued!” She seemed to be calming down.

“Gimme a break. You’ve got a couch, a kitchen, a bathroom and a bed. That’s got to be better than being stuck in a tower.”

“Like, there’s nothing to eat or drink in here!”

“There’s a case of MREs.”

“Like, what are
those
?” she said, disdainfully.

“Meals Ready to Eat,” Jesse said.

“Like, in cans?” she asked, haughtily. “You expect
me
to like eat out of
cans
?”

“They’re actually in plastic and foil packages. We can get you something to cook.”

“Cook? You expect
me
to
cook
? Are you, like, totally out of your
mind
? A princess of the fey does not like
cook
! That’s like, like totally saying I have to scrub like my own
back
!”

The pain in the ass bitch comment from Queen Cougar was starting to make sense.

“And there’s like totally nothing to drink in here at all!” she continued to complain. “Like, what kind of a rescue like do you call this? What do you expect me to like do? Drink like tap water? I only drink Evian and like Dom Pérignon! Maybe like a totally awesome Napa vintage! And you’d totally better not be planning on feeding me like
McDonalds
! Grody! Like,
cook
? Like, food in
plastic
? Like, what’s your
damage
? Are you like totally
mental
?”

“Oh, my God,” Jesse said, turning off the speaker. “I like totally can’t listen to it anymore.”

“Like totally,” I said then blanched. “Gag me with a spoon. Oh, my God!”

“What?” Jesse said.

“My contact said she’d been imprisoned for twenty years for a severe infraction against her mother and ‘all mothers everywhere,’” I said. I turned the speaker back on.

“…and like I totally like need some new clothes! Like, what’s with all these like cheap T-shirts?”

“Princess,” I said. “Princess? Shallala? You there?”

“Like, this is totally
bogus
…”

“Did the offense against your mother have anything to do with Valley Speak?”

“Oh my, God! I like totally invented Valley speak!” Shallala squealed, for the first time sounding happy. “It’s like totally awesome isn’t it? It’s so
me
!” The last was a squeal of pure delight.

Jesse quickly shut off the intercom again.

“Chad,” he said, seriously. “There are deals with the devil and there are deals you don’t make!”

“I know,” I said, growling in frustration. “I know. But this is the only chance we’ve got to stabilize Seattle, Jesse. We have to do it.”

“You want to, like, make a deal with the
inventor of Valley Speak
?” Jesse said. “Like, bring
that
thing to Seattle? Have you, like, lost your, like, ever-loving
mind
? Valley speak is like pernicious like infective and totally like practically on the PUFF list!”

“Jesse,” I said, putting my hand on my best friend’s shoulder and looking him in the eye. “Like, in this job, sometimes like sacrifices totally gotta be made, dude.”

* * *

“Princess Shallala,” I said as she continued to babble and complain. “Princess? Shallala?
Like totally shut up for a second!”

“Are you like speaking to
me
,
mortal
?” she snapped.

“Do you want to know the plan or not? Because if you do you’re going to have to like shut up for a second!”

“Fine!” she snapped. “What-ever!”

I could picture her with those long bat arms folded and her head to the side. The long and limber neck of the beast and its weird insect eyes made the whole Valley Girl head tilt make like so much more sense. She was like totally grody.

Oh, God. Pernicious. Infective…

I explained. I had to keep getting her back on track. I won’t force you to read that. Anyone who has ever dealt with an ADHD Valley Girl off her meds knows what it’s like. Jesse had to leave. I just figured I’d explain it to my father confessor and try to get it to count as a corporal work of mercy.

“So, like, you want me to go to, like,
Seattle
?” she said. “Oh, my God! Totally
puke
me dork face! Seattle has like
no
malls! And it rains
all the time
! And there are like
no
hot clubs! Totally gag me!”

Gladly
, I thought.

“Twenty years in a tower watching everyone else go to the mall,” I said. “Or twenty years as the princess of Seattle. Your call. All I’ve got to do is take you out of this container and run like hell. Your mom’s people will be on you like a flash.”

“And then she will totally rip out your soul and flay it for eternity, dork face,” Shallala pointed out.

“I’ll take that chance.”

“She’s like going to
anyway
, dumb butt. I can’t, like, just be Princess of
Seattle
. The instant I like go out in public the Hunt will be on me in like a
second
. And then they’ll like have your smell and no mortal survives the
Huuunt
.”

“Got that covered,” I said.

“I’d like to hear
how
,” she said.

So I told her.

“That’s the stupidest plan like I’ve ever heard in like my
life
. And I’ve lived a
long
time, mortal. Totally stupid plan.”

“Does she want you dead?” I said.

“Like, she totally wouldn’t mind,” Shallala said. “Bitch.”

I was pretty sure that dealing with the inventor of ValSpeak would, like, totally drive the most stable mother totally insane.

“Well, we have one thing in common. We both totally hate our mothers. But seriously. Is she going to be willing to let you die?”

“Like, duh,” Shallala said. “No, she’s not. I’m like her
heir
. No other
girls
, dork face. All she’s had are boys. And only girls can like inherit from like their moms. We might hate each other but like she’s not going to let me die. But she’ll like know you won’t go through with it.”

“What do you mean?”

“She can like read
minds
, mortal,” Shallala said. “Like dig right in. She’ll know you’re not willing to die.”

“If that’s the problem with the plan, it’s not a problem.”

“Like, it’s
totally
a problem, dork face!”

“You’re assuming I’m afraid of dying. And if it’s a choice of dying or having my soul ripped from my body and tortured for eternity, I’m good. I’ll take out you, her, The Hunt, me, everybody. I’m, like, totally into that samurai bushido stuff. Totally suicidal mental.”

There was, for a change, a very long pause when she engaged what I suspected was an actually good mind.

“Then I totally don’t like this plan,” she said.

“Twenty years in that tower watching everybody else having fun, or we try to negotiate with your mom.”

“You’re like insane.”

“It’s been suggested,” I said. “By professionals.”

“This is a totally bogus plan.”

“You don’t like the clubs in Seattle? Build your own. That way you can have, like, your own court.”

“Of mortals?”

“Mortals,” I said, placatingly. “Fey you can attract to your court. You’ll be like your own little queen of Seattle.”

“That might be like, okay,” she said, thoughtfully. If it was possible for her to be thoughtful.

“You don’t have to deal with your mother every day. You don’t have to be stuck in a tower. You get to be the boss of everybody. Within limits.”

“Like,
what
limits?” she asked.

“There’s a contract. It’s about six hundred pages. You can read it while we drive to Seattle.”