Page 47 of Shelf-Made Man
“That’s food.” Olve sounded distressed.
“Is there something wrong with it?” asked Tobias.
It was Alfie who answered. “They always feed you before he….” His throat made a choked sound. “He doesn’t want you to faint too soon.”
Okay, that was it. That. Was. Just. Fucking. It.
Tobias leapt to his feet, pulled out the Leatherman, and attacked the wall as if it were Snjokarl. He imagined scraping his blade over the smug, cruel face, tearing away the flesh until nothing was left but a pile of shattered bones. He knew this was awful imagery and probably frighteningly trollish, but at the moment he just didn’t care. His mother had told him that physical activity was a healthy way of displacing anger, and ohboydid he have a lot of anger to displace.
He didn’t know how long he worked—everything was just a red blur. But it felt like only a few minutes before he had scraped both white and green coatings away from a swath of wall almost as big as he was.
“Will magic work now?” he asked, probably too loudly. He probably looked terrifying. Olve seemed a little alarmed.
Alfie, on the other hand, was staring at him with shining eyes. “You arestunning, my love.”
As serious as the situation was, Tobias couldn’t quite suppress a pleased grin. Then, in a softer tone, he asked again, “Will it work now?”
“I’m not sure….” Olve chewed his lip. “I’m not that skilled to begin with, and?—”
“Allow me,” said Alfie. He put a gentle hand against the sore spot on Tobias’s head and hummed.
This time Tobias was sure of the tune. “Mariah Carey?”
“Shh. Let me concentrate.” Alfie resumed humming, and after a few seconds Tobias’s scalp registered an agreeable tingle accompanied by a gentle warmth. He closed his eyes and had to bite back a moan of pleasure—not sexual, more like the kind emitted during a good stretch or a perfect massage. His headache faded, along with the dizziness and brain-fuzz.
Alfie gave Tobias’s shoulder a quick kiss and stepped back. “It’s working.”
Olve muttered something that sounded like a prayer, and Tobias was tempted to join in. But they weren’t free yet. “So what should we do? I can zap all three of us out of here.”
“That will buy us some time.” Alfie looked grave. “But it won’t be a permanent solution.”
Right. Snjokarl would have his minions track them down right away.
Tobias scratched the beard that was starting to grow and distractedly acknowledged that he really preferred to be clean-shaven. “So if Snjokarl was out of the picture, would his trolls still come after us?”
“Unlikely. Without him to boss them around, they’d just give up.”
“What about your brother?”
“The trolls have no loyalty to him. And I doubt he’d bother pursuing any of us. He wanted me gone.” Alfie gave a sad shrug.
So getting rid of Snjokarl was the solution. Honestly, Tobias had pretty much known that from the start. “Before, we were willing to just abandon him in the other world. But now I don’t trust him enough for that. I’m afraid he’d figure out a way to get back here.”
“I concur,” said Alfie. Olve nodded in agreement.
“But as much as I want to tear him to tiny shreds—and I really, really do—I’m not sure I could live with myself if I committed cold-blooded murder.”
Alfie embraced him. “We all have baser instincts. Unlike Snjokarl, you have the morals and strength of character to control yours.”
“At the moment it would be handy if I didn’t.” Tobias was also aware that he didn’t have time to be gloomy about it.
“There… might be another option,” said Olve.
Chapter
Twenty
Ahasty plan was concocted.
