Chapter 41

-Dante-

As we followed Chels through their city, I kept looking around so much my neck hurt. Just like the dwarven mountain, the pixie forest was fascinating.

It was very peaceful around us now that we were far away from the cave and the main street. The pixies had decorated the massive trees with dim, warm lights that shone behind the leaves, casting tiny shadows upon us, and giving the entire forest a welcoming, soft glow. The houses and balconies were covered in colorful flowers and vines, and when I looked closer, I could see long strings of small beads hanging off the flowerpots, sparkling under the thousands of lights. Those beads seemed like a huge trend around here, since everyone seemed to have them.

I barely even watched where I was going while I stalked the families having dinners on their balconies, or just spending time in the decorative gardens on the ground. I noticed that many of them waved at Chels as we passed them by, all with big, friendly smiles on their faces. None of them seemed wary of us, a big group of strangers three times bigger than them. They seemed so kind and friendly, like none of them had a mean bone in their bodies.

So how did they end up kidnapping someone?

Around ten minutes later, I noticed that the buildings around us were getting bigger, and there were less people around. There weren’t as many lights either, and the gardens were bigger but not as colorful. A business district, perhaps?

Soon I got my answer, and it was yes – kind of.

“Bon’s factory is just up ahead,” Chels said, pointing in the distance where I could see much bigger buildings than what I had seen so far.

And the sky was actually visible since there were fewer trees in the area. The buildings were not quite like the factories I’d seen, but keeping their architecture in mind, these were clearly working places – offices, markets and manufacturing facilities. I even spotted a hospital sign on our way.

“I know you are eager to find your friend, but please, once we’re inside, let me do the talking, okay?” Chels asked us with a friendly smile.

“Of course,” Zane said, giving Frank a stern look.

“Great! I just have the feeling that things will go smoother that way,” she said, also side-eyeing at Frank.

“I’ll keep my mouth shut,” Frank grunted.

We stopped next to the entrance of the building, and I was a little surprised they were more than big enough for tall humans too. While Chels rang the intercom right next to the door, I peered in and saw quite a big lobby behind the glass. With human sized chairs and everything. I was about to ask about it, but someone answered the intercom.

“Good evening and my apologies, but we are closed for the day!“

“Bon? Is that you? It’s Chels.”

“Chels? What are you doing here this late?“

“I know what you did, Bon,” Chels said sternly. “And I have a couple of friends with me that would like to talk to you.”

“I-I have no idea what you’re talking about!“

“The human, Bon,” Chels said, crossing arms over her chest in a very stern manner. “You should let us in so we can talk in private. We’re not here to cause any trouble. We just want to know why, Bon, because this isn’t like you. If you’re in trouble, we might be able to help.”

“I… I… I…” the man stuttered, and I could hear how much he was sweating just by the sound of his voice. “I didn’t know what else to do, Chels…” he finally said with a defeated voice.

“Let us in so we can talk, all right?” Chels asked, but this time with a much kinder tone.

I was surprised when the door let out a quiet buzz, and Chels opened it. We followed her inside in complete silence, peering around restlessly. I couldn’t shake the feeling that this was a trap, but Chels seemed peaceful, and so did Zane. If only Roe had been there with us… Sure, Chase and Frank were warlocks, but Roe was the one with true power… Why on earth was he still staying hidden?

But nothing odd happened. We stood there in the dark, simple lobby for a few moments until a door on our left was opened, and an older pixie man with a gray hair and a nervous expression on his sharp features stepped through. That expression dropped even more when he saw us behind his friend. He was wearing a white lab coat over his regular clothes – a striped brown shirt and blue jeans – and his dark-blue wings were flapping restlessly.

“I’m sorry!” he gasped before any of us could even blink. “I didn’t know what else to do!”

“All right, I believe you, but I still don’t understand what’s even going on,” Chels said, walking to him. “You kidnapped a human!”

“I know, I know…” Bon said in distress, wringing his hands together. “Who… Who are your friends?”

“They’re friends of the human you brought here. He is here, right?” Chels asked.

“Y-Yes… I didn’t know where else to put him… But you must understand, this was my last resort,” Bon muttered.

“Why did you kidnap him?”

Bon let out a weary sigh and rubbed his temples. “He took something from me, and he hasn’t returned it. I need it back!”

“What did he take?”

“I’d rather not say… But it was valuable, something no one has never accomplished before… I was supposed to take it with me on the Mad Science World Tour!”

“Oh! So it was your invention,” Chels guessed.

“Yes! But he refused to give it back, and didn’t answer my calls… I need it back, Chels. My daughter and I worked two years on it… We were invited as special quests on the tour and everything…”

I wasn’t sure if I should’ve been angry or sad or both. The man who was supposed to tell us more about me had stolen something from an old man!

“I’m starting to believe I can live without his information,” I muttered.

“Could you let us talk to him?” Frank said, stepping forward. “He’s an old… acquaintance of mine. Maybe we can help sort out this mess?”

Apparently, even Frank wasn’t quick to call Gus his friend at that moment.

Bon hesitated for a moment, but nodded eventually. “I can’t let him leave, but you may talk with him. After all, it is thanks to you I finally found him.”

“Take us to him,” Chels asked, and Bon nodded.

He led us through the door he had come from, and we followed him through a long hallway through the building. But there was a problem. The doors in there had big windows on them, and I could see a lot of laboratory equipment in the first room I peered in.

“This is a lab,” I said, and stopped.

“What?” Chase breathed out and looked at what I was looking at.

I closed my eyes and turned away, focusing only on my breathing. The memories…

“I can wait with you outside, if you want,” Ben suggested, stepping closer to me.

“No. I can do this,” I said and opened my eyes again, but this time I kept my head down.

“It’s not a lab, technically. We produce Janaer’s concoction – a liquid used in many potions. That’s all we do here,” Bon explained.

I took in a few, deep breaths, but I was pretty sure the beast wasn’t coming out this time either. I had already turned into it once today, so maybe it was tired? Or maybe it was waiting for its moment to strike…

“I’m fine,” I muttered when Chase placed his hand on my arm. I looked at him and saw worry in his icy eyes. “I am, really,” I added softly.

“Good,” he muttered back, but he didn’t look like he believed me.

“We good to continue?” Frank asked, and Chase turned to glare at him, but I lifted my hand to silence him.

“Yes,” I said shortly.

“Is… everything all right?” Bon asked carefully, and I nodded.

“I’m fine,” I repeated, trying not to get annoyed with the questions.

“You don’t like labs?” Bon guessed as he turned around, gesturing at us to follow him.

“Not particularly, no,” I muttered.

“Don’t worry, there’s no laboratories upstairs,” Bon said, pointing at a staircase at the end of the hallway.

The second floor really was different from the first one. It was a big, open space with small cubicles, a big meeting room with glass walls on the left, and a door with a sign that said “break room” at the back. It seemed like a nice place to work in, with flowers and comfy-looking couches and chairs basically everywhere.

What made it a less nice environment was a group of people that could be described as goons. They stood up to glare at us the second we stepped in. Only a few of them were pixies, the rest were either humans or supernatural beings in their human forms. I was not familiar enough with different scents to even guess what they could be.

“You were supposed to make them leave,” a pixie woman with the same dark-blue wings as Bon said with an annoyed tone.

“They may be able to help us,” Bon said nervously.

“How would you know that?” the woman asked, and spotted Chels. “Hey girl – I’m sorry, but this is a family business.”

“Family business,” Chels repeated with raised eyebrows, looking towards the humans. “Doesn’t look like it.”

“Could someone just please explain what exactly is going on?” Chase spoke, getting agitated.

“We’re not telling anything to outsiders,” the pixie woman snorted.

“Chari – these people are friends with the human you brought here,” Chels said with a pleading voice. “And Bon already told us about the invention he stole.”

The woman – Chari – let out a frustrated sigh, and turned to look at Bon. “Dad! You were not supposed to say anything!”

“We can trust Chels,” Bon muttered.

“We’re not leaving before we can talk to Gus,” Chase said, crossing his arms. “You can keep him for all I care, but he has information we need. It’s urgent.”

“We may be naïve, but we’re not stupid,” Cheri snorted. “You are not going anywhere near him.”

“You know we can just brute-force our way to him,” Chase asked, but before anyone else could say a thing, Chels stepped between them.

“How about we take a nice, deep breath now, okay?” she said with a smile. “We’re all friends here.”

“Do you trust them?” Cheri asked.

“Zane is a good friend of mine, and I know Chase,” Chels said. “They’re good people.”

“We just want information, that’s all,” Ben said in his kind manner. “I have a sick patient, and Gus may be able to help us find the cure, you see,” he added without even looking at me – I appreciated the fact that he didn’t mention me.

“I do feel like we should give them what they need,” Bon added. “It is thanks to them we were finally able to track him down.”

“What does that even mean, thanks to us?” Frank suddenly asked.

“Oh, we have been following him for two months now – or at least we tried. We have managed to capture some of his messages and calls before, but we had no idea where he was. He is very good at hiding. But today, Lady Luck favored us,” Bon explained.

“How did you capture our messages?” Frank asked with a frown.

“We are mad scientists, after all,” Cheri said proudly. “And that’s all you need to know.”

“If you want to talk to him, go ahead, but we can’t let him leave until we’ve gotten what he took from us,” Bon said, looking braver now that he was surrounded by his… friends?

“Fine – but no funky business, all right?” Cheri said, squinting her eyes at us.

“Thank you,” Chase said, and sighed in relief. “Where is he?”

Cheri gestured at us to follow her into the break room. It was like any other break room with a kitchen corner and several tables. Cheri continued walking past them to the changing rooms and stopped by the men’s room.

“He’s in there,” Cheri said. “If you try anything funny, I will knock you out cold.”

At first, I thought she meant physically, but then I figured that mad scientists had their own ways of doing that.

Frank was the first one to step in, followed by Chase and me, while Ben and Zane stayed by the doorway with Cheri and Bon. There, at the opposite end of the room, between the gray lockers, sat a man in his fifties with a big bandage on his forehead. He had big, round glasses, an old, brown pilot jacket, black jeans and brown leather shoes. He was balding and had a mustache from the eighties, giving him a harmless look. But he had stolen something, so I kept my guard up.

“Gus,” Frank greeted his friend, who peered up at us in disbelief.

“How did you find me so quickly?” he asked.

“Pixie dust – it was all over your cabin,” Frank explained shortly. “You seem to have quite a story to tell us.”

“I’ll tell you everything after you get me the hell out of here!” he spoke, looking hopeful.

“Yeah, about that… What we’ve heard so far makes me believe you deserve this mess,” Frank said.

“I do not! This is a misunderstanding!”

“You stole from these people,” Frank said with a frown.

“I did not! I told you, this is a misunderstanding!” Gus pleaded, but Bon suddenly appeared in front of him.

“A misunderstanding?” he repeated. “You stole my Eavesrock! Do you have any idea how long it takes to teach a rock to eavesdrop? My daughter and I worked on it for over two years! We were supposed to show it at Mad Science World Tour!”

“I was going to give it back…” Gus mumbled, not quite able to look Bon in the eyes.

For some reason, it made me relax. This mastermind was clearly ashamed, and the fact that he was bowing his head to a pixie proved he was harmless. But this was getting ridiculous. We were in this particular mess because of a rock? An eavesdropping rock?

My life… What the hell…

“Then give it back,” Bon pleaded. “If you just give it back, we can forget this thing ever happened.”

“You are banned from our lands, of course, but we are willing to leave it at that,” Cheri spoke sternly.

“I… I… can’t…” Gus mumbled.

“You keep saying that, but why?” Bon asked. “What did you do to it?”

“I… lost it,” Gus murmured.

“It’s fine, we can find it if you tell us where you think you lost it,” Bon said, clearly getting his hopes up.

“It’s… I think I dropped it in Humble’s Ravine…” Gus muttered, and the synchronized way everyone sighed in frustration indicated that it would not be easy to get the rock back.

“Are you sure it’s in there?” Cheri asked.

“Y-Yes…” Gus mumbled.

Bon’s expression turned miserable, and he went to sit down on one of the benches in the room. I watched him closely, feeling bad for the old man. Cheri walked over to him and placed her hand on his shoulder, and she, too, had lost her composure.

“Oh, you son of a bitch…” Frank muttered to Gus. “Why the hell would you even go there?!”

“I was trying to find out where the lost treasure of Viona Wellington was buried,” Gus explained.

“Viona who?” Frank grunted.

“She was a vampire princess… It’s a long story, but her treasure should be somewhere in that ravine…”

“And you needed the rock for that?” Frank grunted, and Gus nodded.

“You can’t simply just walk into the ravine,” Gus said. “But I was going to return the rock, I swear! I got ambushed by the local clan and I had to make a run for it!”

“And you left the rock behind…”

“I… Yes… But I still have the earpiece,” Gus said with an expression that told me he knew the earpiece didn’t help him at all.

“We can make new earpieces before breakfast,” Bon mumbled. “The rock was one of a kind. It took us over two years to raise it… To teach it… And now… All that work was for nothing… We have to give up our spot in the tour…”

“It’s been our dream to get invited to the tour,” Cheri said in sadness. “It’s two weeks away and we have nothing to show now…”

I turned to glare at Gus. “Where is that ravine?”

“It’s only a few hours away from here,” Chase said. “But that area belongs to ogres.”

“Ogres?” I repeated.

“Complete brutes. They’re even worse than trolls,” Chase explained.

“They’re worse because they have brains,” Frank added. “No sane person goes anywhere near them!”

“I know I shouldn’t have gone there,” Gus muttered apologetically. “But the treasure…”

“Fuck the treasure!” Frank spat at his face. “You don’t steal from people! Look at them! You ruined their dreams!”

Frank pointed at Cheri and Bon, but Gus didn’t dare to look at them. Pitiful.

“I’m sorry…” he muttered. “I really am.”

“It’s too late now…” Bon said, and let out a miserable sigh.

“This all could’ve been avoided if you had just answered our calls,” Cheri spoke to Gus. “I think it’s better if you all leave now,” she added, standing up.

“C-Can I go too?” Gus asked, and seeing his hopeful look angered me.

“You’re not going anywhere,” I told him, and turned to look at Chase. “How bad are these ogres?”

“Not as bad as Ice Worms in Njizrski,” he said, giving me a crooked smile.

“Good,” I said and turned to look at Gus again. “You’re coming with us.”

“W-What? W-Where?”

“You’re going to show us where the stone is,” I told him. “And you’re going to tell us everything you know about Rassawolves.”

“B-But… But…!” Gus stammered, but I grabbed him by his shoulder and lifted him up on his feet.

“Aren’t you happy that you get to make things right?” Frank asked before I could say a word.

“I…” Gus trailed off, and turned to look at the pixie duo. Maybe he did have some shred of decency after all since he nodded. “Yeah. Yes. I’ll help you get it back.”

“You will?” Bon asked, standing up too.

“We’ll get it back,” I promised.

“Really?” The old pixie’s expression was so bewildered that I couldn’t help but smile.

“There is a beast in me that’s causing nothing but trouble. It’s about time we use it for good,” I told him, and even though he didn’t know what I was talking about, he smiled widely.

“If you do it for us, you’ll have a lifetime supply of Janaer’s concoction. I promise you will never run out of it,” Bon said.

“That’s awesome – that stuff is expensive,” Chase smirked.

“Right! You are a potion master!” Bon said in excitement. “Come! I have some ready for shipping right here!”

“It can wait,” Chase chuckled, but Bon refused to listen.

As the others started making their way out of the room, I turned to look at Gus.

“If you fail us…” I said.

He shook his head. “I won’t. I promise,” he said quietly.

“Good, because you don’t want me as your enemy,” I told him, and followed Chase out.

“Here!” Bon was saying when I joined them by one of the desks.

He was opening a small cardboard box, revealing a dozen small vials of…

“Chernobyl juice,” I said when I recognized the radiant green liquid.

“What? No, no, no, this is Janaer’s concoction,” Bon said, picking up one of the vials. “One of our… more questionable inventions, but a very useful product with high demand.”

“Why is it questionable?” I asked.

“Well, it’s basically our pee,” Bon said. “It is sterile and carefully distilled, of course.”

“Oh my, look at the time! We should return home and prepare for the trip,” Chase suddenly spoke and basically ran to the stairs.

I could still only stare at the vial.

Pixie… pee…?

I had been drinking pixie pee this entire time.

“Chase!!”

I was so going to strangle him.