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"What do you want?" he asked in Melosealfôr.
"I've come searching for you. Feddrah-Dahns is staying at my house, and he was worried about you. And the horn." I whispered the last. Elves were skilled in speaking Melosealfôr, and no way was I letting Tish find out what Mistletoe was carrying. Or what I hoped he was still carrying.
He settled down in my palm, his wings tickling me as he crossed his legs, his face suddenly serious. "I have what you seek, Lady. My Lord entrusted it to me, and I managed to retrieve it. But before I could get to him, the goblin came at me. I flew as fast as I could to hide my tracks and got lost. I fear they might be able to tap into my Whispering Spell and have been loathe to use it again."
I couldn't see anyplace on the pixie where he might be hiding a unicorn horn, at least not one larger than a toothpick. I was about to say as much when Tish wandered over, Delilah in her arms.
"I caught your sister." She blinked as she noticed Mistletoe.
He gave a little hiss when he saw her, but otherwise kept still. "I see you found him. Can you do something about the others? They're getting on my nerves, and pretty soon we're just going to have to move—which of course, they'd love."
"What am I, an exterminator?" I mumbled under my breath, but decided since Tish and her husband had done us a good turn, we owed them one. "Hold on." Turning back to Mistletoe, I leaned in. "Listen, I have to help this elf. Will you sit with my sister if I can get her to change back?"
He blinked, warily staring at Delilah's all-too-interested gaze. She looked like she was eying a giant chew toy. "Don't like cats. Cats eat pixies."
"Cats eat pixies, all right," I said, squinting at my sister. She was squirming as she watched Mistletoe move around in my palm. I leaned over and deposited him on a thick rhododendron branch. "Wait here."
Delilah clambered into my arms as I reached for her, her claws digging into my shoulder through the capelet. I petted her, calming her down, listening as her motor raced along with little huffs and sniffs. After a moment, I could feel the energy shift and quickly deposited her on the ground. More slowly than her first shift of the day, but still almost quicker than the eye could catch and in a cloud of mist and vapor, she returned to her normal form, her bright blue collar becoming her clothes. As she crouched on the ground, I reached down and took her hand, hauling her to her feet.
"Welcome back. Great gods, that looks like it hurts."
"Nope." She coughed, then spat out something that suspiciously looked like a greasy hairball. I grimaced. Couth, she was not. Being part cat meant fending off feline problems, including hairballs, fleas, and using a litter box.
"You okay?" I asked as she hacked out the last of it.
"Yeah. I sure didn't expect that. What's going on?" She looked around, saw Mistletoe, and clapped her hands. "Is that him? Did you find him?"
I nodded. "I want you to take him out front, keep him company while I dispatch the pixie problem back here. I promised Tish I'd at least give it a try."
"Hey, I'm not a problem," Mistletoe said in English as Delilah scooped him up and followed Tish to the gate, with the pixie protesting his innocence all the way. As she opened the gate, Tish gasped and jumped back as Morio pushed his way past her. He ignored her as he strode over to my side.
"You're late," I said. "We have a pixie infestation here. I promised the nice elf lady that I'd try to do something about it. What, I'm not sure. Most of my spells aren't meant for dispatching pests."
"I couldn't find my bag this morning and thought I lost it," Morio said, patting the black bag slung over his shoulder. He never went anywhere without it. The bag contained a skull that was his familiar. When he shifted into a fox, if he didn't have his skull nearby, he couldn't shift back. For his full-demon form, it wasn't so important. "Pixies, you say?"
I nodded. "Look at the residue dust they've left around the yard."
Morio's dark eyes gleamed. They shifted to topaz when he shifted into his natural form—his demon self. Lithe and compact, he was tightly muscled but neither tall nor bulky, and his long, sleek ponytail gleamed jet-black under the cool sun. Oh yeah, he was mighty fine. Mighty fine in bed, too. He had a way with his hands that was hard to match, even for Trillian. Both of my lovers managed to complement each other, and I was one hell of a grateful witch.
"I might be able to do something," he said.
Just then, a dart pierced the right side of my neck. On reflex, I slapped the sting and brought my hand away to find a tiny spear plastered to my skin. Giggling from the branches of a nearby maple gave away my attackers' positions. I spun around to find myself facing a row of five pixies, lined up on the branch like birds on the arm of a streetlight.
"Okay, knock it off!" Another titter brought another sharp sting to my left cheek. Sure enough, there in the hedgerow, another group of the pests were eyeing us, armed with a bevy of spears and darts. At least they looked uncomfortable; the hedge was holly, and the glossy leaves looked like they were poking into the pixies' backs.
Morio swung around and held out his hand. "Foxfire!"
A thick, green cloud of light spewed out of his hand toward the hedge. At first, the pixies just laughed, but then one shook his head and said something to the dude next to him. I couldn't hear what they were saying, but there was a sudden rush as they tried to vacate the branch before the vaporous cloud engulfed them.
I glanced up at the tops of the trees. The branches swayed in the wind, and I quickly summoned the currents of air to me, gathering the energy deep in my solar plexus, where I let it swirl and churn. Then it was a simple matter of aim, focus, and shoot.
Unfortunately, I'd managed to suck up a little more wind than I wanted to, and the resulting thrust of air not only knocked the pixies every which way but blew me off my feet. I went sailing backward through the yard to land hard with my back against the trunk of the maple. The shock froze me into place—for about thirty seconds.
The second oops came when I realized that I had landed off balance. I tried to catch my breath so I could right myself, but it just wasn't going to happen, and I crashed like tall timber, once again falling face-first in a patch of the pixie dust that coated everything.
Cripes, I thought, breathing the rich scent of wet, sour soil and pixie powder. I didn't want to hurt them, just shake them up. And I really didn't want to hurt myself. I wasn't a masochist.
As I sputtered, spitting out a blade of grass that had gotten stuck in my teeth, Morio helped me to my feet, a crooked smirk hiding behind his grin.
