Page 52 of Box of Frogs
‘You,’ the bastard in question growled, his attention wholly on me.
I stretched out my arms and grinned unpleasantly. ‘Me.’
We smiled at each other nastily. And then all hell broke loose.
The Redcap barrelled towards us, head and shoulders down. I braced myself for the impact but Morgan shoved me out the way and raised his fists. With considerable dexterity, he held one up in front of him as a defensive manoeuvre and used the other to smack the side of the Redcap’s head. Both of them crashed to the ground with a heavy thud.
I sucked in a breath, leapt on top of them and started pummelling the Redcap’s back. Despite the pathetic lack of strength in my arms, I must have hurt him because he hissed and momentarily abandoned his efforts to smoosh Morgan into the tarmac.
The Redcap rose up and flung me off his back. ‘I’ve been hoping we’d meet again,’ he said.
Breathing hard, I faced him. ‘Aren’t you the lucky one?’
‘Lucky indeed. You won’t walk away from me this time. This fight is mine.’
‘Over my dead body,’ I snarled.
He bared his teeth at me in a smile. ‘That can be arranged. Your blood will stain this road tonight.’
Fortunately, Morgan took that opportunity to kick out. His foot connected with the Redcap’s leg and brought him down to the ground again. In one lithe movement, Morgan sprang upwards and towered over his victim. ‘I don’t want to hurt you,’ he said, ‘but I will if that’s what it takes.’
The Redcap grinned evilly and reached inside his coat pocket, drawing out a gun. I heaved in a panicked breath and jumped towards Morgan, knocking him out of the way in the nick of time. The Redcap fired a shot, missing my ear by centimetres. Morgan cursed and lashed out, trying to kick the gun out of his hands.
I reached down inside myself, drawing on the same time-altering magic that had served me so well up until now. The long day had obviously affected me adversely, however; although I could feel the magic pulsating through me, I couldn’t pull on enough tendrils to have an effect. I tried harder.
‘So you’ve thrown your lot in with this bitch, Morganus?’ the Redcap said, clutching tightly onto the gun. ‘Bad move. We’ll stop at nothing to get her and her boss. We’re willing to sacrifice everything. Are you?’
Morgan gave a snarl in response. He reached down for the wily arsebadger, hauling him upwards. ‘What do you mean?’ he demanded, just as the Redcap loosed another shot and I managed to bring together enough time-magic to spark up.
The world slowed. The bullet glistened in the night air; I could see that the Redcap had found time to coat it with rowan poison to end both Morgan and myself. It was heading directly for Morgan’s heart.
Without thinking, I ran the few steps back to Morgan and grabbed him to move him out of the way. Morgan flashed me a quick, green-eyed look; as he’d said, he was unaffected by the sluggish time bubble I’d created. I collided with him, which altered his grip on the Redcap. I pushed Morgan out of the bullet’s way just as he heaved the Redcap upwards. The Redcap’s body sailed overhead and the gun fell out of his hands.
I could already see that it was wrong. My interference had made Morgan’s body twist so that when he threw the Redcap, the angle was off. In terrifying slow motion, the Redcap spun through the air and I knew that he would land badly. So did Morgan. Both us whirled, grabbing at the flying body in a bid to turn it.
We were too late. The Redcap slid out of our grasp and landed on the hard road. Head first. There was a sickening crack and then everything went still.
Chapter Seventeen
I edged over to the Redcap’s body, wary in case he would try to get back up again. I shouldn’t have been concerned; his pupils were fixed and dilated and he was no longer breathing. I muttered a curse under my breath.
‘He’s dead,’ I said to Morgan, accusingly. ‘I wanted to question him.’
Morgan wiped the blood off his face and walked over stiffly, trying not to show that he was in pain. He stopped next to me and stared down at the Redcap’s body. ‘Fuck,’ he swore, before turning away. ‘His neck is broken. There’s not much that will kill a Redcap but breaking their neck will do it.’
‘Does this mean that you’ve now broken the truce too?’ I enquired. ‘Will the same terrible fate meet you as well as me?’
‘Redcaps aren’t Fey,’ Morgan said. ‘They’re not included under the terms.’
‘How convenient. They’re obviously not human, though. If he’s not a faery, what is he?’
Morgan was silent for a second. ‘They’re probably akin to what humans would define as ogres. They have their own demesnes. By all accounts, it’s a grim, grey place. A group of them were here when the borders closed and they were trapped just like us.’ He looked at me. ‘What have you done, Maddy?’
I stared back at him. ‘What the hell do you mean? It was you who dealt the killer blow.’ I didn’t mention that it was my interference that meant the blow went wrong. I didn’t need to.
Feeling sick because of the Redcap’s abrupt death, my mouth spat out words before I could stop them. ‘Don’t start castigating me again. This isn’t all my damned fault.’
His green eyes flashed. ‘That’s not what I was referring to.’
