“Ooh, yes. I really do. Want to step into my room and show me?” She rolled onto her head and started wiggling her neck up at him.
The badger’s grin faltered. “Wait, really?”
“Rawr,” Samantha said. She rolled over and then started wetly sucking on his ankle.
“What is happening right now?” the badger asked.
“Samantha, you don’t have a room,” Donut said. “And get off his leg. Welcome, everyone. We need to step out. We’ll have you come with us so we can get to know you better.”
Samantha removed herself from Finley’s ankle. “I do too have a room. I’ve redecorated it and everything. It used to be Carl’s room, but he never goes in it because he spends all his time in the bathroom.”
“It’s pretty sick,” one of the sluggalos said from the controller. “The new wallpaper is badass.”
“Wait, what?” I asked. “Wallpaper?”
The fire fairy hadn’t taken her eyes off the back of the room. Her name was Quemada. When she spoke, she had a thick Spanish accent.
She also worshipped Emberus. She was looking at the bubbling Emberus shrine. She turned her attention to me.
“I’ve changed my mind,” she said. “It’s not double the price. It’s triple the price.”
“We’ve already negotiated,” Rosetta said. “We paid the price to the mercenary guild. You can’t increase the price after the fact.”
“It’s triple the price, or we walk.”
Rosetta opened her mouth to object, but I raised my hand. “Did you guys drive during the last races?”
“Both Finley and Olga can drive. I am protection,” Quemada said.
I spent a moment just looking at the fairy, thinking. “We’ll pay the price.”
[ 35 ]
“My friend Mordecaiwas once a frog creature like you,” Donut said as we entered Hungry Eyes Village. “He did this annoying croaking thing a lot, but you got used to it. You don’t croak so much. He was really good at picking things up with his tongue.”
“I’m a toad, not a frog,” Olga said.
“Isn’t that like the same thing? My other friend Prepotente said that while frogs and toads can’t have babies with each other and they look a little different, that toads are biologically the same despite what they teach humans in school. You’ll meet him in a minute. He says people have a lot of their facts wrong. Like blood in veins isn’t really blue that just turns red when it hits oxygen or that frequent self-abuse makes you blind. Carl’s vision has always been 20/20. It used to make Miss Beatrice jealous because she had to wear contact lenses.” She paused. “Then again, she did have that drawer that wasnotfilled with cat toys, if you know what I’m saying.”
“What are you talking about?” Olga asked.
I was struck by how much emptier the streets seemed. The street vendors were all still about, but the number of racers walking around had clearly thinned.
I caught sight of Elle, Imani, Florin, and the others standing near the end of the street with the restaurants and the temples. Prepotente was there, too, but Jurgen wasn’t. Donut waved furiously, and we started walking toward them.
“I had a vision from our lord,” Quemada the fairy whispered to me as we passed the temple that led to Club Vanquisher. The fairy’s presence was hot on my shoulder and ear. Her wings were made of smoke. “He told me if I came across a fellow worshipper who was also a racer that I was to help him in any way I could. We have been tasked with slaying his brother. An impossible mission yet one we must strive to complete.”
I gave the fairy a sidelong glance. She was much smaller than Elle but larger than most of the regular fairies we came across. “If you’re so gung ho on helping, then why’d you raise the price?”
“Because I know we will be slain when we attempt to kill Hellik, and the fee will help keep Olga and Finley safe for some time. These races are much more dangerous with each heat. And since you can’t hire me more than once, we will need to make our attempt now, while we can. That fee will allow them to take a break, and perhaps they will survive this current challenge. I have already lost one friend, and I do not wish to lose more. This makes our martyrdom much more comforting, does it not?” She put her small hand on my shoulder. My cape started to smolder under her touch. “Prepare yourself, brother. The unappeasable fire beckons us.”
“Yeah. Right,” I said.
I was a little alarmed at this sudden turn, but this whole Kill Hellik quest had been festering in the back of my mind. I needed to make sure the god was dead before the end of the eleventh floor. And if the floor was truncated? That meant I should probably deal with this problem as soon as possible. I needed to plan and preparesomething. We’d been so focused on just surviving this floor, I hadn’t been thinking of it.
That was a mistake, and I knew it. But even at our strength, it was, indeed, an impossible task.
My choices were to kill Hellik. Not kill Hellik. Remove myself from Emberus as a worshipper. Or kill Emberus.