Sean Cullen - The Prince of Neither Here Nor There

“It’s just a power failure,” Harold offered. “They have, like, emergency power and stuff.”

“No. It isn’t a normal power failure. I can feel it,” Brendan said tightly. “She’s coming.”

“That crazy woman?” Harold asked.

“Orcadia.” Brendan nodded. “She’s found me.” He whipped his head around to Finbar. “Fine! Whatever you ask, I’ll do it. Where is the amulet?”

Finbar wagged a finger. “Uh, uh, uh! Not so fast, me lad. I won’t tell you. I’ll show you where it is.”

“No way! You can’t even leave your bed!”

In answer, Finbar tugged the IV out of his arm. Fluid squirted from the needle.

“Also gross,” Harold gulped.

The old man swung his scrawny legs out of bed and staggered to the wardrobe, on the way revealing his equally scrawny buttocks through the slit in the back of his hospital gown.

“Now I may barf!” Harold said, covering his eyes.

“I’ll get dressed and away we go.” Finbar hauled open the door of the wardrobe to reveal his clothes on hangers within.

“Hurry,” Brendan cried. He rushed to the window and looked out. Traffic was snarled because the traffic lights had failed. People were honking and trying to get around each other. His heart sank. He felt that everyone was being put in danger all because of him. He turned back into the room to find that Finbar had pulled on his pants and boots and now Dmitri was buttoning up the old man’s shirt.

“Let’s go!” Brendan shouted and ran for the door. Dmitri and Harold pulled the old man by the elbows and they rushed out into the hall.

Brendan stopped short. The nurses’ station was dark. Here, on the inside of the building, there were no windows. The only light came from battery-operated emergency lights over the nurses’ desks.

“BLT!” Brendan hissed.

BLT popped out of Brendan’s pocket. In her tiny hands she held a mini chocolate bar, half of it already eaten. “What’s up, your lordship?”

Brendan groaned. “Don’t tell me you’re on a sugar high!”

“All right,” BLT giggled. She began to spark and glow. “I won’t tell you.”

“Where did you get that?”

She pointed an unsteady finger at Dmitri and laughed. “His lovely babka gave it to me. What a lovely woman, she is! Thoughtful, you know what I mean?”

“Can you tell me if Orcadia is close?”

“She’ll be comin’ up the elevator when she comes.” BLT giggled, looking unconcerned. She started to sing. “She’llbe comin’ up the elevator when she comes! She’ll be comin’ up the elevator, she’ll be comin’ up the elevator…” She collapsed into helpless giggling and tried to fly out of Brendan’s grasp. He quickly caught her and, none too gently, rammed her into the pocket of his jacket and zipped it shut.

“And that little Faerie is useful how, exactly?” Harold asked.

Brendan’s pocket began to heave and glow from within. “BLT! Gimme a break, will ya?”

Nurse Rita came around the corner. She held a flashlight. “We seem to have had a power failure. Are you boys all right?” Then she saw Finbar. “What are you doing out of bed, Mr. Shaughnessy?” Then she saw he was dressed in his street clothes. “What’s going on here?”

Brendan opened his mouth to answer, when there was a crash from down the hall where the elevators were. A rending of metal shrieked through the ward.

“What in the world…?” Nurse Rita began.

Brendan didn’t want to wait to confirm what he already knew. “To the stairs!” he shouted and ran for a red exit sign down the opposite hall.

He crashed into the door and flung it open, revealing a set of grey concrete stairs with a steel pipe railing painted dull grey. With Dmitri and Harold dragging Finbar close behind, they rushed as fast as they could down the stairs by the light of the red emergency bulbs.

As the door was swinging shut behind him, Brendan clearly heard Nurse Rita saying angrily, “And who are you? There are no pets allowed in the hospital. It’s against the rules.”

There was a low canine growl. Brendan recognized it all too well as the sound of the Kobolds. Orcadia’s voice was as cold as ice. “The rules just changed.”

The door slammed shut on the yapping laughter of the Kobold pack.

78 Politeness is the one true weakness of adults. When politeness is used properly, a child can achieve almost any result. Sad eyes help a great deal. Adults are so susceptible to sad-eyed children that an entire industry involving the production and sale of pictures of children with giant sad eyes has grown up. The Sad-Eyed-Children Picture Industry employs millions worldwide and grosses more than ten billion dollars a year.

Brendan was about to run down the stairs with his friends and make his escape when he stopped short. He was stung by guilt. Poor Nurse Rita couldn’t be left to face her fate alone. It wasn’t right.

Brendan shouted at the others, “Hurry! Get downstairs! I’ll be right behind you.”

Harold needed no coaxing. With Finbar leaning heavily on him and the railing, the chubby boy started down the stairs as fast as he could. The old man’s slouch cap was poised com-ically on top of his bandaged head. The two of them turned the first corner and disappeared from sight. Dmitri stopped and looked hard at Brendan. “Where are you going?”

Brendan looked back at the door. “I can’t leave that nurse to deal with Orcadia and those hounds.”

“What could you possibly do? All you should be worrying about is getting away.”

“Just go!” Brendan yelled. “I’ll be fine. Wait for me outside.”

With that, Brendan flung the door open and stepped back onto the seventeenth floor. Flickering lights could be seen from down the hall in the nurses’ station. The sniff and snort of the hounds and the murmur of Orcadia’s voice reached him. Brendan mustered his courage and headed back toward the nurses’ station.

Brendan came around the corner to see Orcadia with her hand around the throat of Nurse Rita. She had pressed the woman up against the wall, and she was speaking straight into the terrified nurse’s face.

“I’m going to ask one more time,” Orcadia said sweetly. “You will tell me the truth or else I’ll let them deal with you.”

The Kobolds squatted in dog form, their pale eyes glaring hungrily at Nurse Rita. Brendan saw them for what they were: Kobolds. His Faerie Sight was becoming more acute, able to see through the hound form they projected for Human eyes. Though they were not in hound form, they still maintained some dog characteristics: their stance, sitting on their haunches with their mouths hanging open, was reminiscent of their canine alter egos. Their red-rimmed eyes rolled in their wedge-shaped skulls as they tittered maniacally.

Brendan couldn’t imagine what Nurse Rita was thinking right then, her Human eyes telling her she was menaced by slavering dogs. He’d been scared out of his mind while running from the beasts through the Undertown. Nurse Rita hadn’t had the benefit of even a day to get used to the bizarre creatures she was facing but somehow she found the courage to defy Orcadia.

“I’m not permitted to release patient information,” she managed to rasp. “Leave here at once. The police have been notified.”

Orcadia crowed with laughter. “The police have been notified? Oh, my! I’m sooooo terrified.” She laughed again. “You have no idea how little I care about the police!” She ceased laughing and raised her fist over her head. Her fingers flickered with sparkling flame and she hissed, “I’ll ask you one last time: I know a boy came here. Who did he come to see and where is he now?”

“Right here!” Brendan announced, stepping out of the hallway. “It’s me you want. Let her go.”