Bloody Fairies (Shadow) Read Online Free PDF Page B

moment of her life. If only somebody would say something.
    Her father finally broke the silence. “You’re not going.”
    Hippy scowled. “Am too.”
    “Tell us what the mission is,” one of the elders said.
    “Can’t.” Hippy folded her arms. “I promised.”
    “Then how do we know he’s not leading you into mischief?” demanded her mother.
    “You just have to trust me.”
    “Trust you?” her father snorted. “You’re just a ditsy little girl who’s not right in the head. You’re hardly even a proper fairy, and all this consorting with muses just proves it!”
    “How do you know you can trust him?” one of her brothers said.
    Hippy straightened. “He’s the muse king! Who else should we trust?”
    There was a smattering of derisive laughter.
    “You can’t trust any muse, least of all the king,” an elder said.
    “How would you know, when you never even talk to them?” Hippy shot back. “I don’t know why you have to be so rude to them, what would we do if they weren’t helping us?”
    “They have to help us, it’s their fault the vampires are even here!”
    “What?”
    Leaf snorted and raked dreadlocks from his face. “You think the muses are good, hardworking, decent people? Do you think they’re handsome? Kind?”
    “Flower’s never been anything but kind to us,” Hippy said.
    Leaf waved a hand as though that were of no consequence. “We tolerate Flower,” he said. “We don’t tolerate any other muse. They are responsible for every vamp that attacks us. Why?” He leaned forward and shook a finger at her. “Because they created them. Every single one. They have free rein to inspire anything in those good for nothing artists and writers in the world of Dream. No rules, no boundaries, that’s how they work. And we’re the ones that get left with veiny, big-toothed bloodsuckers on our doorstep!”
    Hippy shuddered. “But we wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for them! Didn’t they inspire us into existence too?”
    “That’s still up for debate!” Leaf yelled.
    “And didn’t they carve out a place in Shadow for us to live?”
    “She’s already spent too much time with them,” an elder declared.
    “Stop arguing and listen, girl!” Leaf’s dreadlocks quivered under the force of the words. “That muse king is the worst of all of them! The things he’s done-”
    Hippy looked pointedly away. “What’s he done that’s so bad then?”
    Apparently, they’d all been waiting for this question. More fairies gathered in around the elders and sat on the ground in expectant silence. Hippy would have groaned under her breath if she’d dared.
    Leaf cleared his throat. His mouth settled in a smug line. “Oh, he’s done plenty,” he said. “Ten thousand years is a long time to get up to mischief.”
    “Three thousand,” Hippy corrected.
    “Quiet you,” an elder snapped.
    Hippy stuck out her tongue at him.
    “Back in what they called the Middle Ages, the humans in Dream did a lot of fighting.” Leaf settled himself more comfortably in his seat, got out his pipe and lit it.
    Ishtar, who was at his feet, sat up straighter. “I like fighting.”
    Leaf chuckled. “So did the humans. But they got so busy fighting each other they created nothing for a long time. They were all either fighting, or dying, or being miserable. They had no cause and nothing to live for–and the muses were getting bored, because no matter how hard they tried, the humans were blind to inspiration. Now this course of events would no doubt have sorted itself out, these things always do. But the muse king, he decided to interfere. He broke the rules and crossed into Dream.”
    Hippy jerked to attention. “Why? What did he do there?”
    Leaf smirked. “He stirred up the humans. Messed with their politics. Next thing you know it was no longer peasants fighting their rulers and each other, it was religion fighting religion. That got the muses going and the artists, too. Simple creatures, humans.