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I hated to admit it, but the asshole had a point.
“All right,” I said. “But I still don’t know what you want me to do. I’ve been on this for less than a week and I haven’t even been looking for weapons. I’ve been trying to help Olga—”
“Save it. I can’t talk like this. I’m coming down there.”
Damn it, I knew it!
“I have things to do,” I said. “I can’t just wait around the house all day—”
“Like hell you can’t. I’m leaving now. If you’re not there when I arrive, so help me God—”
“What? You’ll shoot me again?”
“No.” It was vicious. “I’ll make you wish I had!”
Click.
Goddamn, I hated that vampire.
* * *
—
I found the little troll in the boys’ room. The door was open since it was early afternoon, and the guys were off on adventures. But the bed skirt on Aiden’s bed was hiked up, to give a view of the door, and ruffling slightly.
Like somebody was breathing under there.
I sat the tray on the table the boys used for coloring and puzzle doing, got down on my hands and knees, and lifted up the skirt a little more. And found what I’d expected: two violet eyes, glowing faintly in the dark, a small hunched body, and a smock covered with bacon jam. For a moment, we just looked at each other.
I debated trying to fish him out, decided that probably wasn’t likely to go well, and brought the platter down instead. I put it on the braided rag rug beside the bed and started looking through the sandwiches on offer. There were two more BLTs, fat and happy looking; a couple of egg salad, thick and spicy, with a generous sifting of paprika; a couple chicken salad topped with lettuce, tomatoes and red onion slices; and no fewer than four PBJs. Because you can never have too many PBJs.
And just in case that wasn’t sufficient, Gessa had stuck a handful of turnovers around the sides like parsley only not, because trolls don’t get the point of garnishes you can’t eat. Their idea of how to improve a plate of food is to add more food, which is a hard point to argue with. Particularly when they’re still warm from the oven and dripping with glaze.
“Smells good,” I said idly, my own mouth watering a little, because the cinnamon-apple and sweet cherry scents were busy battling it out for dominance.
I pushed the mounded tray a little closer to the bed, started munching on a turnover, and attempted to look harmless.
I guess I succeeded, because, after less than a minute, a small, thin arm snaked out and grabbed a cherry pie.
It jerked it back under the bed, too
far for me to see anything, but I could hear smacking going on.
I listened to him inhale a few more turnovers and a couple sandwiches, and then pulled over the paper and crayons that the boys use to design knights and fighter jets and knights piloting fighter jets.
Violet eyes peered out at me curiously.
I flipped back the rug to get a work space, and fed the kid another sandwich. He took it from my hand this time. He appeared to like the meat ones best, but he ate them all. Yes, ten full-sized sandwiches—or twelve, if you counted the two he’d had as an appetizer—along with half a dozen small fruit pies.
Trolls had to have a stomach that extended into another dimension; it was the only explanation.
“Fish, tracks, door,” I said clearly, and picked up a blue crayon.
I drew a fish.
He ate egg salad at it.
I drew train tracks, and even got the perspective right.
