“Don’t see him.”
“What?” I pushed past them.
Mike was right. There were two leprechauns, and they weren’t veiled. They were in the indoor PlayPlace playground.
And they were as naked as a pair of jaybirds.
McDonald’s had rules about kids taking off their shoes before entering the PlayPlace. It was obvious that the leprechauns had decided to keep on going.
Thank God it was four in the morning. If it’d been an hour later, this neighborhood would be waking up and grabbing a coffee and a McWhatever to start their day. Anyone who set foot in here now would lose their appetites and wake up without the aid of caffeine, seeing things that were best left unseen.
One leprechaun was in the ball pit and the other was coming down the slide, his bare butt cheeks squeaking on the plastic. Neither one was Prince Finnegan.
Mike’s expression was a frozen grimace of disgust. “The owner’s going to need to hose down that ball pit and slide.”
Steve nodded. “More like powerwash. With Clorox.”
The leprechauns saw us and their eyes widened, and with a simultaneous squeak, both dove into the ball pit. Without hesitation, Mike and Steve ran across the restaurant and jumped in after them.
I came inside, letting the door close behind me. Ian would be in here any second, but in the meantime, I was going to find myself a leprechaun prince. I scanned the interior of the restaurant. The owner was still outside with Ian, and from all appearances, there wasn’t another soul in here. Behind me came the sounds of thrashing and balls being thrown.
“Son of a bitch bit my ankle!” Steve spat. Then he switched from English to Elvish for a few more choice words.
I detected movement behind the counter. Thankfully, it wasn’t tall enough to be Rake Danescu. Though I couldn’t imagine the goblin in a Mickey D’s in the Bronx with naked leprechauns. No amount of wishes could be worth that.
I peeked around the edge of the counter. Now that was a health code violation.
Prince Finnegan’s bare butt was perched on the edge of the steel counter, head tilted back with his open mouth under the nozzle of the soft serve ice cream machine.
He saw me and sat up, but took his sweet time doing it. He smiled and wiped the chocolate ice cream from the corner of his mouth with the back of one hand, leaving a smear across his face.
Oh yeah, the prince was a real class act.
“I escaped,” he said.
“Congratulations.”
“You don’t sound happy. We’re celebrating. Join us.”
“Celebrating what? That you and Rake Danescu were able to . . . let’s see, how did you say it? Conduct your business in a civilized manner after you cleansed the human and elf stain from his place of business.”
Finn laughed. “Mere words, love. The best way to escape a madman is to forge a connection with him, to have similar goals. A tactic, nothing more.”
“Uh-huh. As one of the aforementioned stains, I don’t appreciate your tactics.”
The leprechaun’s humor vanished as quickly as his clothes probably had. “And I don’t appreciate SPI’s interference. I did not ask for protection. If you hadn’t come after us, the goblin wouldn’t have found me. You led those goblins to us.” His smile slid into a chocolate-smeared smirk. “When you look at it that way, human, this is all your doing, not mine.”
I wasn’t going to take the bait.
“You set us up,” I said.
“Now what would be in that for me? Besides the satisfaction of making SPI look like witless fools. Which, as you must admit, didn’t take any effort on my part.”
“You tell me. What was in it for you?” I stopped merely looking at him, and locked eyes with the leprechaun. “Wish number one: Tell me who paid you to set us up.”
Finn chuckled. “Hmm, perhaps not as witless as I presumed. Very well, seer. Your answer: I do not know. And if you are truly not witless, then you know that I cannot speak a lie while under wish compulsion.”
Damn, he was right. “What did they give you in payment?”
“Your second wish?”
“It is.”
“I received an anonymous and most generous wedding gift of one hundred bars of gold. In the Seelie Court, favors are often exchanged anonymously. The gift was given with the provision that I lose my SPI bodyguards—making SPI look incompetent, which was a fond wish of mine—and after that, I was to go to Bacchanalia.”
“Do you make a habit of accepting gifts from people you don’t know who want you to go to the most dangerous club for a leprechaun in the city?”
“Is that your third wish?”
“Nope, just a question.”
“Very well. If the reward is large enough and the strings attached acceptable, then why should I not accept the gift? My friends and I didn’t want mortals underfoot on our night out, and Bacchanalia is the best sex club in the city. Why wouldn’t I want to go there?”