Storm Front

What was his name? Please, do you think wizards just give information like that away? You don’t know what I went through to get it.

About ten minutes later, Toot came flickering in over the water of Lake Michigan. At first I mistook him for a reflection of the moon on the side of the softly rolling waves of the lake. Toot was maybe six inches tall. He had silver dragonfly’s wings sprouting from his back and the pale, beautiful, tiny humanoid form that echoed the splendor of the fae lords. A silver nimbus of ambient light surrounded him. His hair was a shaggy, silken little mane, like a bird of paradise’s plumes, and was a pale magenta.

Toot loved bread and milk and honey – a common vice of the lesser fae. They aren’t usually willing to take on a nest of bees to get to the honey, and there’s been a real dearth of milk in the Nevernever since hi-tech dairy farms took over most of the industry. Needless to say, they don’t grow their own wheat, harvest it, thresh it, and then mill it into flour to make bread, either.

Toot alighted on the ground with caution, scanning around the trees. He didn’t see me. I saw him wipe at his mouth and walk in a slow circle around the miniature dining set, one hand rubbing greedily at his stomach. Once he took the bread and closed the circle, I’d be able to bargain information for his release. Toot was a lesser spirit in the area, sort of a dockworker of the Nevernever. If anyone had seen anything of Victor Sells, Toot would have, or would know someone who had.

Toot dithered for a while, fluttering back and forth around the meal, but slowly getting closer. Faeries and honey. Moths and flame. Toot had fallen for this several times before, and it wasn’t in the nature of the fae to keep memories for very long, or to change their essential natures. All the same, I held my breath.

The faery finally hunkered down, picked up the bread, dipped it in the honey, then greedily gobbled it down. The circle closed with a little snap that occurred just at the edge of my hearing.

Its effect on Toot was immediate. He screamed a shrill little scream, like a trapped rabbit, and took off toward the lake in a buzzing flurry of wings. At the perimeter of the circle, he smacked into something as solid as a brick wall, and a little puff of silver motes exploded out from him in a cloud. Toot grunted and fell onto his little faery ass on the earth.

"I should have known!" he exclaimed, as I approached from the trees. His voice was high-pitched, but more like a little kid’s than the exaggerated kind of faery voices I’d heard in cartoons. "Now I remember where I’ve seen those plates before! You ugly, sneaky, hamhanded, big-nosed, flat-footed mortal worm!"

"Hiya, Toot," I told him. "Do you remember our deal from last time, or do we need to go over it again?"

Toot glared defiantly up at me and stomped his foot on the ground. More silver faery dust puffed out from the impact. "Release me!" he demanded. "Or I will tell the Queen!"

"If I don’t release you," I pointed out, "you can’t tell the Queen. And you know just as well as I do what she would say about any dewdrop faery who was silly enough to get himself caught with a lure of bread and milk and honey."

Toot crossed his arms defiantly over his chest. "I warn you, mortal. Release me now, or you will feel the awful, terrible, irresistible might of the faery magic! I will rot your teeth from your head! Take your eyes from their sockets! Fill your mouth with dung and your ears with worms!"

"Hit me with your best shot," I told him. "After that, we can talk about what you need to do to get out of the circle."

I had called his bluff. I always did, but he probably wouldn’t remember the details very well. If you live a few hundred years, you tend to forget the little things. Toot sulked and kicked up a little spray of dirt with one tiny foot. "You could at least pretend to be afraid, Harry."

"Sorry, Toot. I don’t have the time."

"Time, time," Toot complained. "Is that all you mortals can ever think about? Everyone’s complaining about time! The whole city rushes left and right screaming about being late and honking horns! You people used to have it right, you know."

I bore the lecture with good nature. Toot could never keep his mind on the same subject long enough to be really trying, in any case.

"Why, I remember the folk who lived here before you pale, wheezy guys came in. And they never complained about ulcers or – " Toot’s eyes wandered to the bread and milk and honey again, and glinted. He sauntered that way, then snatched the remaining bread, sopping up all the honey with it and eating it with greedy, birdlike motions.

"This is good stuff, Harry. None of that funny stuff in it that we get sometimes."

"Preservatives," I said.

"Whatever." Toot drank down the milk, too, in a long pull, then promptly fell down on his back, patting at his rounded tummy. "All right," he said. "Now, let me out."

"Not yet, Toot. I need something first."

Toot scowled up at me. "You wizards. Always needing something. I really could do the thing with the dung, you know." He stood up and folded his arms haughtily over his chest, looking up at me as though I weren’t a dozen times taller than he. "Very well," he said, his tone lofty. "I have deigned to grant you a single request of some small nature, for the generous gift of your cuisine."

I worked to keep a straight face. "That’s very kind of you."

Toot sniffed and somehow managed to look down his little pug nose at me. "It is my nature to be both benevolent and wise."

I nodded, as though this were a very great wisdom. "Uh-huh. Look, Toot. I need to know if you were around this place for the past few nights, or know someone who was. I’m looking for someone, and maybe he came here."

"And if I tell you," Toot said, "I take it you will disassemble this circle which has, by some odd coincidence no doubt, made its way around me?"

"It would be only reasonable," I said, all seriousness.

Toot seemed to consider it, as though he might be inclined not to cooperate, then nodded. "Very well. You will have the information you wish. Release me."

I narrowed my eyes. "Are you sure? Do you promise?"

Toot stamped his foot again, scattering more silver dust motes. "Harry! You’re ruining the drama!"

I folded my arms. "I want to hear you promise."

Toot threw up his hands. "Fine, fine, fine! I promise, I promise, I promise! I’ll dig up what you want to know!" He started to buzz about the circle in great agitation, wings lifting him easily into the air. "Let me out! Let me out!"