Page 69 of Pixie Problems
Rhys’s hand was clutching my hip in a firm grip. I smoothed a hand up and down his back, trying to soothe him. Since we’d entered the first room, he’d had his starlight shield up. It covered he and I, as well as Cy and August. I didn’t know if he could logistically cover the others because they were scouting up a down the caverns doing recon, sniffing around, and moving from one place to another, never staying still. I’d noticed Rhys’ shield liked it best when people stayed stationary. That’s why August, Cy and I were all standing still, letting the others do their jobs.
“The last bomb had been activated by vocal vibrations. They weren’t activated by motion, or remote,” Finn whispered to us after he’d conferred with another officer. “Going forward—because my shifters and I scent more bombs, but we can’t see them to know how they’re activated—stay quiet.”
The four of us nodded. I’d had my gun drawn and ready since the first cavern, but I was slowly coming to the realization that this huge dome rock was not just one big cavern, but many, with pathways, twists and turns, and dead ends, so it might be a while before I got to shoot Hux. I was still in favor of shooting his kneecaps.
I switched on the headlamp on my beanie. It immediately radiated a soft white light. Rhys had thought of everything, including my abysmal pixie eyesight. The smell of the ocean was strong in this cavern. A small trickle of ocean water ran through a very anemic river. The rest of the river had been stopped up by the recent rockslide.
Finn waved his phone in front of my face. I nodded, pulled my phone out of my jacket pocket, and made sure it was on silent.
Finn: We’re splitting up. I’m sending half the team with you down the first branched passageway, and the other half and I will take the other one. Stay safe, and text me if you find anything.
I looked up at him and gave him a thumbs up. The others in the room quickly split into two groups. We got one of the wizards, a few shifters, one undefined paranormal, and my small group of four. The rest went with Finn.
The passageway started out very narrow, but widened the further we went, for which at least Cy was very grateful because of his size. We quietly trekked down the passage together while the wizard and shifters went ahead to scout things out. One of them, a feline shifter of some kind, came back after scouting and indicated for us to follow her. The passageway ended in a large cavern covered in whitish looking stalactites. At the other end of the cavern was a tiny pocket-cavern. The entrance of that looked like it had a warlock grade forcefield preventing the shifters from getting out. It buzzed with snarling purple energy.
While we waited for the shifters to scout the cavern to see if it had a bomb, our wizard inspected the oblong device sitting in a crate on our side of the forcefield.
Cy came back to me. “No bombs in this area.”
I nodded, then looked at the rest of the team. “Anyone taking a bet that these are the shifters magically tethered to Hux?”
At the sound of our voices, those behind the forcefield started moving forward, toward the snapping forcefield. A few of them got zapped by it and cried out as they fell back. I could tell they were yelling and trying to speak to us but the forcefield blocked all sound. “Anyone good at reading lips here?” I asked.
“I am,” August said. He stepped closer to the forcefield. “If anyone can read lips over there, please tell us who you are.” He enunciated his words clearly, and we waited. The crowd parted, and a gnarled old woman who looked to be older than the Nile river, stepped forward.
She began speaking, and after a long moment, August nodded that he understood and came back to us. “These are the ones not loyal to Hux or his officers. The one’s tied to him by the stone, as we all suspected.
“She said they’ve been part of the pack since Hux’s father led the pack, and that he was a good alpha who took care of his pack, and they followed him willingly, but when Hux took over, it became clear to them that the son not only didn’t have the strength to hold the pack together like his father did, but he also had no qualms about abusing and torturing them for his own vicious pleasure.
“They tried to leave, many times, individually and as a group, but couldn’t. They celebrated when the boys were able to get away, but after the boys got away, and Hux wasn’t sure how they’d managed it or if they’d had help, he punished the rest of them, then shut them in this pocket cave with no food or water. They’ve been in there for days.”
There were a lot of them, maybe thirty or so. Those loyal to Hux were undoubtably the only ones allowed to be in his inner circle, so between the ones that Rhys, Naut and I had taken out, he’d had a larger pack than I’d thought. More than fifty strong.
Speaking of Naut. I crouched down. “You’re doing great buddy.” I rubbed his head and scratched under his chin.
Naut whined. I knew he didn’t like the situation. Surrounded by danger, enemies somewhere he couldn’t see, and me heading straight for them, but he didn’t teleport me out. We’d talked about it before we’d left the house tonight. No teleporting unless it was an emergency. Besides, he couldn’t teleport everyone out at the same time, and I refused to leave anyone behind.
August moved closer, and Naut curled his lips and growled. August looked both hurt and offended. “I gave you a t-bone last night, dude. Where’s the love?”
I shook my head at Naut. “Be nice. You can’t be a hero all the time.”
August put his hands on his hips. “Is this because I got you and Rhys out of the first cavern before the bomb went off?”
I shrugged my shoulders. “What do you want me to say? My wolf has a hero complex, apparently.”
“No steak for you tonight,” August said, and Rhys, who’d been tense as a bowstring since we’d arrived, chuckled.
“As long as you three work together to keep Dice alive, I’ll buy youallsteak tonight.”
I was down. I was starting to get hungry again. My stomach growled, and Rhys shook his head, giving me a look that said he didn’t understand how I could be hungry already. It was simple. I was a growing pixie who burned up a lot of energy. I needed nourishment. And sundaes. Nourishment and sundaes. Oooh and cheese puffs. Nourishment, sundaes, and cheese puffs.
One of the officers called Rhys over to the device, and I moved with him.
“This device is rigged to explode if someone messes with it, either physically or magically. My tech wizard has a null orb that will drain it of magical energy, but just in case it explodes before it’s drained, we need one of your starlight barriers over it.”
“Will the null orb stick to the device?”
The wizard cleared his throat and rubbed the back of his neck. He had all the appearance of someone who was an introvert. He looked incredibly uncomfortable with everyone’s attention on him. “Yes, it’s designed to magnetize to anything radiating magical energy and drain it once I activate it.”
