Bruce rushed into the mix. He didn’t have hands, but he had his body, his mouth, and even his tail. It took a frustrating amount of time to figure that out. His back end was definitely a hindrance, but it didn’t matter. He needed to bat the things away from Laddin. It was a losing game because every… were they really tiny cheeses? Whatever. Every cheese that he batted away came back again, and he couldn’t knock them all aside. He had to figure out something else.
Then he realized he’d made a mistake. Oh hell. He’d been snapping at the things with his jaws. And rather than have them seal his mouth shut, he’d swallowed what was definitely cheese.
He tasted American cheese, which was the most recognizable to his palate. Blue cheese, brie, cheddar. Those filtered across his taste buds as well. The other ones—the harder, almost crunchy bits—were simply weird. But if they flattened on Laddin like concrete, what the hell were they going to do to Bruce’s insides?
Then another thought ripped through his mind, mostly because his belly was beginning to rebel. It was stupid and not something he thought about often. But sometimes his body reminded him that it was real.
He was lactose intolerant. He’d never admit to his fellow firefighters that pizza gave him gas, but this was different. He’d swallowed a ton of magical cheese, and his gut wanted to toss it back out. Fine with him. He’d love to vomit the crap out, but it wasn’t going that direction.
And all the while, things were going worse for Laddin. He’d been on his knees because his ankles were wrapped together. Now his arms were trapped because the string cheese had bound his wrists like handcuffs. Laddin was making furious sounds as he toppled over. Why the hell didn’t he shift to wolf? Then they could both run away.
Meanwhile, Bruce’s gut wasn’t handling the cheese well. He knew the feeling of bloating, but this was like a bomb was building inside, and he was going to let it loose like a flame thrower. There was no choice. It was the only way to get it out.
So he did. He lifted his tail high and let it rip. Gas burst from him like a valve release, and good God, the smell was enough to make him gasp. A loud bell-like tinkling filled the air, and part of him realized it was laughter. The cheese was laughing at him. If he hadn’t been in the middle of magical fairy gas, he would have smashed the cheddar bits with rocks.
But he didn’t have the strength or the coordination. In fact, thanks to his burning ass and the roiling in his gut, he lost his footing, tripping and falling face-first into a pile of sticks and rocks. Ow. Ow. Ow! One of the sticks poked straight into his gums, and another caught his snout. He flinched away, but that only made it worse… which was hard, given his general state of misery.
But he couldn’t stop fighting. He had to keep the things off himself and Laddin. He struggled to his feet. If nothing else, he could body-block the things from attacking Laddin. Except as he searched for a target, he realized that all the cheese had fallen back. And when he really looked hard, he saw that they seemed to be cheering.
Cheering?
He turned to try to help Laddin, who had fallen onto his side in the fetal position. But while Bruce stared, the cheese manacles on his wrists popped open and their tiny hands were clapping together. The squeezed American cheese between Laddin’s fingers solidified back into squares and hopped up and down in celebration. His ankles released too, and all the string cheeses around his torso and legs were doing backflips of joy.
WTF?
Bruce started to yip a question, but another disaster was building in his gut. He was back on his feet, and he danced around, crashing into the stick construction again. The pieces went everywhere as he accidentally destroyed whatever the structure had been, and the bell-like cheers got even louder.
He would have stopped to wonder, but he didn’t have time. Tail-up time.
He released another long, loud fart of magical gas, and this time Laddin made a sound—a snort mixed with a chuckle that quickly turned to laughter that blended in with the high-pitched cheering from the fairies.
Hell. Bruce was never, ever going to eat cheese again.
Chapter 9
PROMISES, PROMISES
OF ALL the memorable sights in Laddin’s life, nothing topped the sight of Bruce shooting fairy cheeses out of his lupine ass. And even funnier? The pixies seemed to love it. After tumbling, rolling, and flailing through the air from the explosive release, they gathered together and dashed back at Bruce’s mouth, obviously hoping he’d eat them again.
He didn’t.
He growled and backed up. And though he looked like he was going to explode—again—he didn’t chomp down on a single fairy. What he did do was glower in frustration at Laddin, who couldn’t stop his hysterical laughter—“hysterical” being the key word, because he was losing it big-time.
The past two minutes had been the most terrifying experience of his life. He’d been slowly encased in cheese that hardened into something like concrete. First a knee, then his chest. Next his hands had become boulders of rock. As soon as he understood what was happening, he realized he had to duck down to protect his nose and mouth. He needed to breathe, but that didn’t stop him from feeling like he was being encased in stone.
He’d kicked, he’d rolled, and he’d hyperventilated with horror, but nothing stopped the steady assault of the cheese. He was going to die, and nothing could stop that.
Until it did all stop. Suddenly he could move again. His lungs dragged in air, his hands opened, and his ankles released. He didn’t know why, and he didn’t care.
