The horn hit me in the chest, and I fumbled with it before I wrapped my hands around it.
Gary’s head snapped in my direction.
His eyes narrowed.
His nostrils flared.
“Sam,” he growled.
“Holy fucking balls of shit!” I squeaked as he began to charge toward me.
But before he could crush me under his considerable weight (something I learned never to say to his face, for fear of castration), another voice snapped, “Gary Matthias Pontificus Esmerelda Juanita Lopez Alabaster Kennedy the Fourth!”
He stopped, dust swirling around him.
I blinked, unsure if I had died yet.
And then Gary’s brother burst through the crowd, an irritated look on his face. He stalked toward Gary, eyes narrowed. Gary glanced back at Terry, then at me, then at Terry again, prancing in place like he couldn’t keep still, his Glitter Rage flowing from him.
“Just what do you think you’re doing?” he asked Gary as he came to stand at his brother’s side.
“My horn!” Gary cried. “Sam has my horn. He stole it from me, and I will crush him and then stuff his twitching remains with blueberries.”
Terry cocked his head in confusion.
“He’s allergic to blueberries. He’ll go into anaphylactic shock, his face swelling and throat closing, and then he’ll die.”
“Whoa,” I breathed. “That’s diabolically detailed. And your full name is ridiculous, FYI.”
“Sam is your friend, though I don’t understand why.”
“He wants to sex up Ryan,” I told Randall.
“Of course he does,” Randall sighed.
“But—but my horn,” Gary whined.
“I can see that. And even though he is completely underwhelming, do you really think he’d keep something like that from you?”
“I always knew he was a shifty-eyed little beast,” Kevin told a random man in the crowd, who appeared as if he was quite terrified of dragons.
“He’s got Glitter Rage Sickness,” Terry said, sounding bored.
“I will eat the flesh from your bones,” Gary growled at me, eyes flashing.
“Eep,” I said, because being threatened by a unicorn would always be petrifying.
“Glitter Rage Sickness?” Randall asked as if he had all the time in the world.
Terry shrugged. “It happens when a unicorn gets really worked up and won’t listen to reason. He can’t stop leaking glitter, and it’s fogging up his mind. All his good feelings and inner sunshine are buried in the stuff.”
“Unicorns are so stupid,” I said.
And then Ryan, sword drawn, came into view, followed by pretty much everyone else I knew. His gaze flew from Gary to Terry to Tiggy to Randall before it locked on me. He gave Gary a wide berth before he hopped over the railing fluidly like the douchebag that he was. Terry sighed dreamily at the sight of it, and I promised myself that if I lived past the next five minutes, I was going to have to have some words with that unicorn about stepping off from my man. I started to formulate a plan where I would somehow get Terry and Justin on a date where they’d fall in love and have what I assumed would be disgusting and tender interspecies sex when Ryan said, “Is that Gary’s horn?”
“Oh dear,” my mother said. “This certainly is a tense situation. Is anyone drawing a picture of this? I’d like a copy for my scrapbook.”
“Looking good, son!” Dad called out. “Maybe stand a little taller and look a little less like you’re about to vomit.”
“Thanks, Dad,” I said meekly, squaring my shoulders, because he was right. I was a man, and I’d take it like a man.
“Filthy creatures,” Vadoma muttered as she stood next to my parents.
“Is this what the camp is usually like?” the King asked. “Because if it is, I really missed out, being in the dungeons.”
Justin sighed. “Would it surprise you to know that it was actually pretty normal until Sam came back?”
“Not in the slightest,” the King said fondly.
“Okay, Gary,” Terry said. “Why don’t we let Sam explain why he has your horn, and if it’s for an innocuous reason, then great. If not, then we can trample him to death.”
“Yesss,” Gary hissed in a strange voice. “He has it. Gives it to us, precious.” He coughed, clearing his throat. “I mean, yes, please, Sam. Please explain why you are holding my horn before I take your life—I mean, so I can hear you out as the friend that I am.”
“I love you guys,” Tiggy said happily.
Everyone turned to look at me.
“Um,” I said.
They waited.
I glanced at Randall.
He grinned at me, motioning for me to continue.
I hated him with every fiber of my being.
So I decided to throw him under the carriage. “Randall had it!”
Randall rolled his eyes.
“That’s impossible,” Gary said. “I sniffed him when you came back. And even though I wanted to demand he tell me where it was, I allowed you to have your talk with him. Well guess what, Sam? The time for words is over. We’re about to throw down. Fight me!”
“This is so erotic,” Kevin said to the Foxy Lady Brigade, who looked as if they might agree. Well, most of them did, anyway. Lady Tina looked as if she had bitten into a lemon and then punched herself in the face.
“He had covered it in magic cloth,” I said. “That blocked anyone from being able to sense it.”
“I have no idea what he’s talking about,” Randall said. “Magic cloth? What flights of fancy are these? I’m old and senile and incapable of doing whatever Sam is saying.”
“Why are you like this?”
He looked at me blandly. “I’m old, Sam. I’ve earned it.”
I turned back to Gary. “You know he had it. Terry told you he did.”
“Wow,” Terry said. “Maybe leave me out of this, huh, Sam? Don’t involve me in your plots against my brother, who I love and respect more than anything—”
Gary immediately stopped leaking glitter. “Okay,” he said. “Unicorn Rage Sickness gone, because I know Terry is full of shit. Respect? You don’t respect me. Anytime I came over to your house, you made me sit on plastic because you said I would leak semen on all of your furniture!”
Tiggy snorted but then covered it up with a cough.
“Maybe you should just give him back his horn,” Ryan whispered.
“I’m trying. And maybe you should stop flirting with his brother!”
“I’m not flirting with his brother!”
“Oh please. I’ve seen the way you look at his haunches when he’s walking away. You know I’m trying to set him up with Justin.”
“What,” Justin said.
Ryan looked horrified. “His haunches? Are you out of your mothercracking mind? And when the hell did you tell me you were trying to set him up with Justin?”
I frowned. “Oh. Wait. I just thought of that like two minutes ago. My bad. But still. You’ve ridden him. I’ve been back for days, and you haven’t ridden me at all!”
“Well,” Dad sighed to Mom, “at least we can say we tried.”
Mom squinted at him. “We can?”
“Maybe we can talk about this later?” Ryan said through gritted teeth.
“My sex life is doomed,” I moaned.
“I can help you with that!”
“Shut up, Kevin!”
“CAN WE PLEASE FOCUS BACK ON ME!” Gary bellowed, and everyone fell silent. “I mean, it’s not as if we’re talking about my horn or anything, something that I’ve been without for years.”
“He’s right,” I told Ryan. “Stop flirting with Terry. You’re wasting everyone’s time.”
“You’re so stupid,” Ryan muttered, glaring at me mutinously.
I ignored him, because that was what one did when getting insulted. “Gary, you know I wouldn’t keep your horn from you. Dude, I’m actually getting a little turned-on at the idea of you getting it back. I wouldn’t keep that from you.”
Gary’s eyes filled with tears. “That was the sweetest thing anyone has ever said to me.”
“That says a lot about all of us,” Kevin said.
Tiggy ran his hand over Gary’s mane. “Pretty Gary. You horny for your horn?”
“A little,” Gary said, sniffling. “And also nervous. I’ve been without it for so long, what if I’ve forgotten how to unicorn?”
“You can’t make words into verbs just because you want to,” Randall said. “Stop it. All of you need to stop it.”