Alarm shimmered in her eyes, but she wouldn’t back down from this.Pride swelled in me as I rested my hand on the small of her back and pulled her closer.
She hadn’t asked for any of this; she’d simply been born differently than anyone else in our realm.Because of that, she’d been thrust into a battle none of us could have anticipated.
“Hey, Pretty Boy,” a voice called from the trees.
What remained of my good mood vanished as Farley floated through a tree trunk to bob only a few feet before us.Ellery had always advised that ignoring the poltergeists was the best way to handle them, but Farley irritated the fuck out of me.
Unfortunately, we needed his help to uncover more amsirah in the forest and to build an army.Plus, he liked Ellery and looked out for her; for some reason, she liked the annoying blob too.
As if reading my thoughts, Farley grinned to reveal all his crooked teeth jutting out everywhere, and his red eyes glinted with amusement.Poltergeists were mostly a blobby surface with a mouth and eyes, but he waved a short, stubby arm at Ellery.
“Lery,” Farley greeted.
She smiled at him.“Farley.How goes it in the poltergeist world today?”
“Same as always; I float, annoy, and find someone to scare the shit out of with my friends.That last part’s always my favorite.”
“What a fulfilling afterlife you have,” Ianto quipped.
I grinned as, for once, the giant didn’t annoy me.But even at his worst, Ianto was far less irritating than Farley.
Farley shrugged in the awkward way poltergeists had.“I do my best.”
“What brings you by today, Farley?”I inquired.
“Well, I’m glad you asked, Aristodick.”
When Callan, Tucker, Scarlet, and Ianto snorted with laughter, I shot them silencing looks, but the twitch of Ellery’s lips stung.
“You too?”I asked her.
She bit her bottom lip as she shook her head, but she couldn’t hide the amusement in her eyes.Finally, she stopped pretending and gave me an apologetic look.“It was a little funny.”
“Traitors,” I muttered.
Farley rested his hands on his shapeless hips like he was hooking his fingers through a belt that didn’t exist.I suspected the move was left over from his living days.
“What do you want, Farley?”I asked him.
“There’s a woman in the woods asking for you, Pretty Boy,” Farley replied.“She said you told her to locate a poltergeist if she needed you and that one of us would find you.We’re not errand boys, you know.”
I ignored the last part of his statement as I felt Ellery’s questioning gaze on me.“It’s the tall woman from the field.I told her to come here for help or if she knew anyone seeking to join us.”
“She’s got a group of women with her,” Farley said, “and some children.”
“It’s just women?”Ellery asked.
“No, there are some boys with them too.”
“But no men?”Tucker asked.
“Not that I saw.”
“How far away are they?”Ianto inquired.
“About five miles that way.”Farley turned to point back the way he’d come.
“We have to get them,” Ellery said.
