I planted a foot on her back, then yanked her hands up and behind her, slapping my second—and last—pair of magic canceling cuffs on her.
The fae noble wriggled, peeling her face off the dead grass. “You wretch!” she screamed.
I kept my foot planted on her back and ignored the insult. “Brody, are you okay?”
“Yeah.” Brody shook himself like a dog shaking after a bath. “Ugh, that was horrible.”
Beyond us, the brownie was still sneezing—he had tears streaming down his face as he tripped and staggered. Grove patiently trailed after him.
“We’re good!” Grove waved to Brody and me, then took a single step to catch up to the brownie—who had staggered a step and collapsed with a sneeze that was so big it rattled his entire body.
April had subdued the centaur by singeing his tail with blue fire and had herded him over to the fae we’d already knocked out/apprehended.
Brody rubbed at his throat—which had red marks where he’d half strangled himself. “Should I call it in?”
April exhaled, her breath crystalizing into a visible puff from the icy cold temperatures the night had dropped to. “Go for it.”
He cleared his throat as he pulled his radio off his belt, then spoke into it. “This is Team Blood. The fae fight was successfully put down. What do you want us to do, Sarge, with the perps?”
I stepped off the fae noble so I could retrieve the mini throwing dagger I’d chucked at her and replaced it on my belt.
The fae struggled to stand—falling once on her knees before finally rocking to her feet. She tried to take a step, but I grabbed her by the cuffs and tugged backwards. She fell down hard on her rear.
“Team Blood, we are in route to your location,” Sarge said. “Prepare perps for transport back to the Curia Cloisters. Headquarters intends to make their monarchs come pick them up.”
And, probably, pay a hefty fine to release them.
The Cloisters didn’t usually hold lawbreakers, but the government was starting to make an exception with all the fae fights so they could extort the monarchs for money in return for the time and trouble it took the task force to stamp out fights.
Brody glanced around at our teammates, then answered. “Understood, Sarge.”
I picked up the marble carving and tucked it away in a pouch attached to my belt, then stabilized the fae noble when she tried to stand up again, muttering under her breath.
“Mongrel, low-born, ingrates!” she declared.
I ignored the spat insults. “This way,” I directed, pointing to the subdued centaur.
The fae noble drew up to her full height, her dignity growing even though there was a dead leaf sticking to her orange bangs, and dirt was smeared across the front of her fine dress. “I am a lady! You shall address me as such!”
“Then this way, Lady.” Using my grip on her cuffs, I pointed her in the direction I wanted her to go.
“I shall not move!” the lady declared.
I eyed her—she was a little taller than me but had a thin figure and looked light enough. “That’s fine,” I said.
She sniffed, raising her nose up so it poked the air. “You will see how you will pay once My King—” she broke off in a horrific squawk when I kicked the back of her knees, making her legs buckle, and helped her sit down again. “Stop! What are you doing?”
I let go of her cuffs and instead grabbed her by the back of the leather chest piece she was wearing. “You don’t want to move, so you don’t have to. Instead, I will move you.” I hauled her backwards, her legs dragging behind her like a rag doll, and her backside collecting frost. Her body left a cleared trail across the lawn, particularly when I dragged her through a pile of brownish-purple leaves.
She kicked her legs and tried to fight it but banged her elbow into a decorative boulder with all the thrashing. She groaned and sagged into my grasp.
“I hope the Cloisters does something about all these succession wars.” April eyed the centaur, who was sitting next to the disgruntled dryad I’d half choked, an unconscious leprechaun that I’d knocked out early in the fight, and an addled faun Brody had handled. “This is getting ridiculous.”
I nodded as I towed the fae up to the pile. The lighter shade of blue on the horizon was now cast with crimson. The sun wasn’t up—this was pre-dawn—but it still felt odd to be in uniform on the streets. Our shift was over but the fae fight had taken nearly an hour to track, and we’d ended up in a residential area north of the lakes.
Brody hooked his radio back onto his belt, then prowled up to our prisoners. He placed a single finger on the murderous-looking dryad who was staring at the trees and, with his werewolf strength, forced her flat on her back. “The fights are getting worse.”
“That’s because the fights are getting more desperate,” Grove said. He technically still hadn’t apprehended the brownie, but as the fae was sneezing so hard he couldn’t see and could only stagger a step at a time, Grove was using his presence to turn the brownie around and had him unknowingly heading back towards us. “Several of the local Courts—Seelie and Unseelie—were overtaken and absorbed into other Seelie and Unseelie Courts, making them stronger. Now, it’s a fight to see who can get the most territory and subjects first.”
April tossed a ball of blue fire back and forth between her hands. “Why fight in the first place?”
“Fear. Greed.” Grove shrugged. “The larger Courts have settled down thanks to some political moves but that surety hasn’t passed down to the lower Courts yet, and probably won’t until the big fae Courts are stabilized across North America.”
The little brownie he was following gave another gargantuan sneeze that threw him to his knees. The sneeze attack must have stolen the fight from him because he made a tortured mewling sound, then voluntarily crawled on his hands and knees to his comrades.
Grove must have sensed me watching the brownie with growing concern. “It’ll slow down in a minute,” he assured me. “It’ll take some time to completely wear off, though.”
The brownie squeaked out a miserable wail.
I checked that the fae noble was secure, then scanned the area—in case we’d missed any stragglers.
“All of those fae politics sound complicated.” Brody loosened the collar of his uniform. While I was dressed in layers to deal with the below freezing temperatures, as a werewolf he was reveling in the chilly air. “I’m glad werewolf political structures are much easier to understand.”
“You say that, but just wait.” April set her hands on her hips and worked on stretching out her back. “With the way magic is, things are changing. They have to change, or we won’t survive.”
I was staring down the length of the park, watching for any movement, when I heard the subtle hum of a car engine. “Backup’s here,” I announced.