Page 8

“So, your dad . . .” I asked Toby, steering us back on track. “The drug boss⁠—”

“Drug lord,” Zee corrected. “Troll mafia don, head honcho, bossman.”

“Thank you, Zee. I think I’ve got it.” Facing Toby again, we all tried to ignore Victor’s growling that seemed to suggest our attackers didn’t have long left. “He told you to bring us here, right?” Toby nodded. “Why?”

“No idea.”

Zee snorted. “Liar.”

“No, I don’t know! I just do what he tells me to do, go where he tells me to go. He said to follow you. I was supposed to sabotage the van so I could offer you a lift back here, but then you kinda offered first, so . . .”

Zee huffed. “You ungrateful dickface.”

“Yes, thank you, Zee. Alright, so Toby . . . you don’t know why your drug-lord boss dad wants us?”

“No, I don’t know, I’m just a grunt. By the Bridgekeeper, please don’t kill me. You can kill everyone else, but please, not me.”

“How’d you know we were even on that road, huh?” Zee asked. “We never know where we gonna be.”

“You uh . . . you s-stopped at the cowboy museum,” Toby stuttered. “They uh . . . posted it on social media. A visit from the famous h-heroes . . .”

I sighed at Zee. “I told you we shouldn’t have stopped.”

Zee fluttered his lashes. “I needed a cowboy hat, Kitten. It was an emergency.”

I’d begun to wonder if we were just not very good at being on the run. Or hiding. “Why didn’t your dad just ask us to meet him, instead of going to all this trouble?”

“I don’t know . . .” Toby sobbed. “I don’t know anything!”

“Then you are of no further use to us,” came Victor’s ominous growl.

“Wait.” I raised a hand. “Let’s not get ahead⁠—”

A boom sounded from outside on the deck and a whole lot of things happened at once. All the frozen trolls dropped to the floor, including Toby, their heads bent at awkward angles. But Victor fell forward too, staggering, teetering on unstable legs. Zee poofed in front of him, and caught Victor in his arms. Blood stained the tattered remains of the back of his shirt.

On the deck stood another troll, smoking shotgun in hand.

He’d shot Victor.

I didn’t hesitate, didn’t slow. I strode toward the troll, who smirked back at us, so proud he’d blown a hole in our vampire’s back.

He swung the shotgun toward me and pulled the trigger.

Boom!

Even as fiery buckshot scorched my chest, I kept right on walking toward him.

He squeezed the trigger again.

Click.

“All out? Oh dear,” I said.

Click, click, click.

He looked at the gun, as though shocked it had let him down. I grabbed it, tore it from his hands, flipped it around so I had hold of the handle, then swung it like a bat.

The troll wasn’t smirking anymore. No, he lay on the deck with his neck broken like the others.