Daniel’s voice was still calm, even affable, but his eyes were hard. I had to applaud him for standing up to the Alfar’s second in command, not least because Griffin could look damned intimidating if he wanted.
Which he obviously did want to do, right then. Griffin’s dark hair was slicked back into a very 1920s-looking style, and his eyes were narrowed to slits. His nostrils had also thinned out, and gone white, as if all the blood in the Alfar’s body was needed to keep him from pummeling something, magically or otherwise.
‘And since when is supernatural business human business?’ Griffin demanded, taking a threatening step closer to Daniel so that the Alfar was nearly on top of the human.
Daniel’s reply was immediate, and stated with precision, as if every syllable counted. ‘Since you stopped being able to control your own. And since we partnered up with the champion.’
Ruh-roh, I thought, channeling Scooby Doo. Griffin’s head swiveled so he could stare me down.
I also noticed that Luke hadn’t moved a muscle. He was standing next to Griffin as if they could be anywhere at any time. There was no apparent awareness on the Alfar leader’s part that he was witnessing something of a historic event – the day that humans declared their overt involvement with a supernatural issue.
‘You have partnered up with Jane, have you?’ Griffin asked, venom dripping from his every word. The look he gave me was furious, and I wondered if we were going to end up in another firefight.
‘Does that mean we are enemies, then?’ The voice came from Luke, and even Griffin looked shocked. I wasn’t entirely sure if the Alfar leader was all there, mentally, since he always seemed so out of it.
‘No,’ Daniel said, even as I said, ‘It doesn’t have to mean that, no.’ We cast each other a glance.
‘What do you mean, it does not have to mean we are enemies?’ Luke asked, his voice still utterly flat.
‘I think we want the same thing,’ I told the Alfar leader. ‘I think we want to stop the Red and the White. So if that’s what we’re agreed on, I don’t see why we have to have a problem with each other.’
Griffin and Luke looked at each other as if communicating silently. I knew that was impossible for beings besides the creature and, apparently, the universe, but I’d seen it with other Alfar. It was like they’d known each other for so long, they had their own secret language, like twins.
Again, it was Luke who spoke first.
‘I am afraid, halfling, that our mutual cooperation will depend on your definition of the word “stop”. How exactly are you planning to stop the Red and the White?’
Luke had taken a few steps forward, enough to make him the clear ‘speaker’ of the group. And even though his tone was as colorless and polite as any Alfar, he had subtly started pushing his power around, as if to remind us just whom exactly we were dealing with.
The Jane of just a year ago would have probably gone ahead and taken a step back and let Ryu deal with it. I could tell the baobhan sith was itching to get in there, and I could feel him coiling up his own power behind his shields. But I was no longer that Jane, and this situation called for a champion.
‘Well,’ I said, taking my own carefully paced steps forward. They were just enough to bring me to within about a yard of the Alfar. I also carefully began pushing against Luke’s power with my own. I wasn’t going to pull the labrys unless I absolutely had to, but I let the Great Island’s leader feel the bite of the creature’s power. ‘The fact is our plan is a bit up in the air.’
Luke raised a brow, and I took a half step forward, pushing with my power.
‘But we know how it’s going to run,’ I said. ‘We’re working on a way to strip the White out of Anyan, saving his life. Then we’re going to use that power to take the Red. And we’re going to kill those monsters. For good this time.’
Unstated in my rundown of events was an implied ‘neener-neener’. For we were going to do what the Alfar had never quite managed – get rid of the Red and the White once and for all.
‘I am afraid,’ Luke said, ‘that this is where we will have to diverge from your plan, and ask you to reconsider.’
As the Alfar said the word ‘reconsider’, he gave my shields a hard shove with his power, to let me know exactly what he meant by ‘reconsidering’.
Instead of pushing back, I let my shields absorb the Alfar’s strength, as if his shove had been no more than a light brush of fingertips. Griffin moved a few steps closer to his leader, ready to help in a pinch.‘Why would we reconsider?’ I asked. I meant that question rhetorically, but Luke was kind enough to answer.
His voice was nasal as he started in on his droning monologue. ‘Your plan is pointless, halfling. More powerful beings than you have failed to kill the Red and the White. They are indestructible. And while you pursue your selfish quest to rescue your bedmate, the consorts grow stronger. It is our people they will attack when they are ready, not yours.’
‘Rescuing Anyan is not selfish,’ I started, but Luke kept droning on.
‘You were made our champion, given tremendous power, but then you abandoned us to our fate. I call that selfish. We need you here, protecting us, not gallivanting around on an impossible mission.’
Despite my best intentions to no longer be surprised by the Alfar, I was surprised by the Alfar.
‘First you try to intimidate me with your power, which isn’t working by the way,’ I said, stepping even closer to Luke. ‘Then you tell me that you need me to rescue you? After you’ve called me a halfling how many times already?’
Luke blinked down at me owlishly as I tried to figure out what was going on here.
‘There’s no way you legitimately think that a halfling is needed to come in and save your ass. You guys would never believe that,’ I said, making a sweeping gesture with my arm to include Griffin in my assessment. I went ahead and kept talking as I tried to figure out the Alfar’s true motivation in trying to get me back onside.
‘You do know you need the champion, but I still can’t believe you’re so easily swallowing that the champion is me and that nothing can be done about that fact.’ Then I had an epiphany. ‘Oh, is that it? Are you hoping to lure me back so you can kill me or something, so someone else can take up the labrys?’
Griffin gave me a disgusted look, and Luke looked bored at my idea.
‘Believe me, we are aware you are more than adequate for the task at hand,’ Luke said, his voice even drier than it was before.
‘The task at hand…’ I mused, feeling the giant puzzle pieces of Alfar intrigue move around my mind, looking for the place they fit, ‘…which you want to be not killing the Red and the White.’
Then it hit me. Of course they wanted me as the champion.
‘That’s why you’re okay with a halfling! You want me to be the champion because you think I can’t be that powerful. You think I’ll do what you tell me and just chop up the Red and the White again, because that’s all I’ll be capable of.’
‘We do want the Red and the White dealt with, yes,’ Luke said. His voice was still flat but did I see his eye tic?
‘But not really dealt with, right?’ I forged on like a hound on the scent. I knew I had something there. ‘You don’t want me to actually destroy the Red and the White, do you?’
‘That’s ridiculous,’ said Griffin, looking very flustered for an Alfar. ‘Of course we want them destroyed.’
But it all suddenly made sense.
‘No, you want them out of the way, not destroyed. Because if I do succeed in actually killing the Red and the White, that’ll make you look awful, won’t it? A halfling doing what none of the Alfar could do throughout the centuries. What would people think? You want the threat removed, yes. But you don’t want me to remove it too much, so that people think a halfling like me could be more powerful than an Alfar.’
With those last words, I took two long strides forward, pushing Luke with my power as I did so. He moved begrudgingly, forced to bend before the enormous pressure of my enforced shields. My mind kept spinning as more implications unraveled before me.
‘And maybe that’s not all. Maybe you don’t want them gone for other reasons. Maybe you want the threat of the Red and the White looming over everyone so people think they need the Alfar, just in case the Red and the White reappear. But if they were gone for good, and killed by a halfling no less, then you lose a great big reason to keep you Alfar around. Your subjects might realize they don’t need you. Because you’re by no means the fiercest tiger in this jungle now, are you?’
And with that, I pulled the ax. It was kind of a cheap shot, but I was really starting to loathe Luke. I had also seen the goblin bodyguards exchanging glances, as were the other supes the Alfar powers had brought with them in their entourage. If they could hear me, they could repeat what I said.
If I’d learned one thing from watching Downton Abbey, it was that the servants always gossiped.
So I went ahead and let the labrys’s power lap over me, shoving at Griffin and Luke like an eager puppy that didn’t know how big it was. The message was clear: Even when I wasn’t trying to be aggressive, I could kick their ass.