18. Sedrick
Sedrick
“D rilling’s going better than I thought it would.
” Burt looked down at the tablet in his hand.
Swiping a finger across the screen, he pulled up the latest stats.
“It’s hard to tell just how far this vein goes, but from everything we’ve been able to gather, it looks like it really is bigger than we thought. ”
Oliver toddled over. He had a bad knee—a mining accident that occurred long before I knew him, something that Oliver often explained was due to the stupidity of youth.
He’d had a limp ever since, but it didn’t slow him down.
“I just got word from Geo. He’s been scouting that branch that came off and seemed headed southeast.” Oliver grinned, his teeth whiter than they should have looked against his dirt-streaked face and beard.
“Looks like it’s almost as big as the main line. ”
“You’re shitting me.” I couldn’t believe our luck.
“I wouldn’t shit you where mining’s concerned, Sed. You know that.” Oliver sounded offended I’d accused him of joking.
“Ollie’s right,” Burt agreed. “He wouldn’t tease about ore.”
It must be a dwarf thing. I hadn’t meant to offend and gave a nod of understanding.
“We’ve got our hands full with the main vein right now,” Burt went on. “Unless you want to hire more help?”
I didn’t and said as much. “The fewer who know about this, the better. We’ve kept things pretty hush-hush so far, but all that’ll change when we deliver our first load. I trust our team. That palladium isn’t going anywhere. We’ll get to it when we get to it. I’m not greedy.”
Oliver slapped his hands together, throwing up a cloud of dust. “You may not be, but I sure am.” Oliver cackled, and I blew it off because it was typical Oliver bullshit.
Burt was in the process of verbally dressing Oliver down when my phone rang. I’d set a different ringtone for the house phone and answered it immediately. Expecting it to be my pixie, I said, “Is something wrong, Phil?”
“Uncle Sed,” Dillon’s panicked voice instantly grabbed my attention. I waved a hand at Burt and Oliver, shushing their bickering. “Dillon, what’s wrong?”
Burt and Oliver instantly quieted and moved closer.
“It’s Phil. He’s hurt. There’s a lot of blood. You need to come home.”
Blood? “What in the hell happened?” I ran up the shaft and headed for daylight. I wanted to shift. I could get home a hell of a lot faster, but I needed to be able to speak.
Dillon whined, low and mournful. “It’s all my fault, Uncle Sed. Phil told Ruthie and me to stay in the house, but I couldn’t see what Peaches was doing, and I didn’t think anything bad would happen. Honest, Uncle Sed, I didn’t mean—”
“Dillon, are you and Ruthie okay?” My heart pounded even harder. I didn’t think I could take it if Dillon and Ruthie were in danger too. Phil being hurt was bad enough.
“We’re fine.” My heart skipped with relief. “Phil got to Ruthie before the gnomes could touch her.”
“ Gnomes ?”
There was a pause, and then Dillon said, “I think I killed a couple. I got bitten, but I’ve shifted a couple of times, and it’s mostly healed. But Uncle Sed, Phil’s a pixie. He can’t shift. How is he supposed to heal?”
I still wasn’t sure what had happened. All I’d gotten was that gnomes were involved and that Phil had somehow saved Ruthie before they’d had a chance to hurt her. I had a feeling Phil had also saved Dillon, but he’d gotten bitten somewhere along the line.
“Dillon, is Peaches still there?” I was out of the mine and dashing across the ground. It usually took me a little over ten minutes to walk from the house to the mine. But I wasn’t walking now. I was running.
“Yeah, he’s with Phil. He’s trying to stop the bleeding.”
“Take care of your sister. I’ll be home soon.” I didn’t wait for Dillon to answer. I ripped off my vest, pushed my phone into it, and transformed into my wolf. I picked the vest up in my teeth and took off on all fours to the house.
Moon Goddess, please let Phil be all right. My heart hammered, and my wolf whined. Phil told me they’d be safe. He’d told me there wasn’t a threat from what Peaches planned to do today. Obviously, he’d been wrong.
* * *
“U ncle Sed.” Dillon wrapped his arms around my naked thigh.
My nephew was also sans clothes. Ruthie was still dressed in the same lavender pants and cream-colored top with a sequined kitten on it that I’d left her in that morning.
I pushed Dillon away and ran my eyes over his body.
Dried blood stuck to his shins and arms, but nothing looked or smelled fresh.
“Are you really okay?” I asked.
“I’m fine. Ruthie’s fine too.”
Ruthie nodded her head like a bobble doll, agreeing with her brother.
“Come on, Phil’s in your bedroom.”
I threw my vest over the back of a chair as I followed Dillon and Ruthie down the hall to my room. The stench of blood grew as I got closer. The door was open, and golden pixie dust filled the air. It was the wrong color and tickled my nose. Dillon and I sneezed at the same time.
“Oh!” A golden pixie hopped off the bed, wings nervously fluttering and spewing even more pixie dust into the room. I could only assume this was Peaches.
I waved a hand in front of my face and tried to cover my nose.
Despite the olfactory irritation, I ran to my bed.
My heart dropped into the pit of my belly like a loaded stone.
Phil lay there unconscious, wings spread out.
A few of my shirts were wrapped around wounds on his arms. They were already soaked with blood.
Towels laid under Phil’s legs. The damage didn’t look as bad there.
His shoes were gone, and his feet appeared undamaged.
It looked like Peaches had also gotten Phil’s jeans off.
Either that or Phil had remained conscious long enough to do it himself.
His t-shirt was shredded. Phil’s briefs were still in place, the fabric soft, pink cotton.
I sneezed again and felt snot forming. “Peaches, I know you’re upset, but I need you to try to slow down on the dust.”
Peaches’s feet hit the floor, and his wings stuttered to a stop. “I’m so sorry.”
I wasn’t sure if Peaches was apologizing for the dust, the bloody state of my clothes, towels, and bed, or what had happened to Phil and Dillon. So far, I didn’t have enough information to know what Peaches needed to apologize for. Or if he needed to apologize at all.
Ignoring Peaches, I went to the bed. My wolf whined low and mournful before that plaintive sound turned into a rumbling growl. I didn’t know whether to be worried or pissed. Right now, I was a toxic blend of both.
“I called Mr. Buttons. His brother is a healer and should be here soon.” Peaches’s wings started to flutter but stopped almost immediately.
“Uncle Sed, is Phil going to be okay?” Dillon asked worriedly.
Ruthie climbed up on the bed and sat on the edge. Her tiny fingers gently petted one of Phil’s wings. It didn’t even twitch. Following Ruthie’s fingers, I noted a tear in one of the gossamer appendages.
My heart sank. Did pixie wings heal? What did a tear mean? Peaches wasn’t freaking out, so I swallowed the sickening thought.
I didn’t answer Dillon’s question, mostly because I didn’t know and didn’t want to lie to my nephew. Instead, I asked, “What happened?”
My wolf and I oscillated between anger and fear as Peaches and Dillon relayed the story.
Dillon kept interrupting Peaches, but Phil’s friend took it in stride and didn’t lose his temper.
So far, Peaches was doing better than me.
Peaches had just ended the gory tale when there was a knock at the door.
The healer had arrived.
* * *
“I t could have been a lot worse.” Marty Buttons’s brother, Hue, said. Brownies made great healers, and I was glad Peaches had called him. “Thankfully for all of us, a gnome bite isn’t poisonous. It’s mostly blood loss and infection that we have to deal with, same as the bite Dillon gave him.”
I was glad Dillon had stayed in the room with Phil while Hue and I left to speak in the living room. Hopefully Dillon was too preoccupied to try to eavesdrop on what was being said.
“It was instinct,” I defended my nephew. I wasn’t happy with the bite, but I understood it, especially for a were as young as Dillon.
“I didn’t mean to imply otherwise.” Hue patted me on the arm.
Being a brownie, he had to stand on his tiptoes and reach up to do it.
I appreciated the effort. “All younglings get into trouble. It just depends on the species as to how that trouble plays out.” Hue gave a wry grin and added, “Adults do a fair job of trouble making too.” He chuckled dryly, and it came out more like a wheeze, making me wonder exactly what kind of trouble the healer got into.
Coughing into his hand, Hue opened the bag he’d brought and pulled out a bottle of a soft blue liquid.
He sat that on the kitchen counter before he pulled out a jar of ointment.
The ointment didn’t smell as bad as I thought it would.
“The wounds will need to be cleaned”—Hue held up the blue bottle—“before the ointment is applied.” He held up the second jar.
“The blood loss wasn’t as bad as all that.
I think our poor pixie passed out due to a combination of pain, blood loss, and a drop in adrenaline.
” Hue’s head tilted toward the hall leading to my bedroom.
“Pixies are generally tougher than other species give them credit for. Generally, their size and fragile wings make people think they’re more breakable than they are.
It’s true, they don’t heal as quickly as some other species, but they heal a damn sight faster than humans.
” Hue said the last with a hint of disgust.
I ignored our healer’s obvious dislike of humans and asked, “And the damaged wing?”
Hue waved off my concern. “The wing’s all there, so it’ll heal up just fine. If a chunk had been taken out, then it might be a different story. Like I said, it could have been worse.”