“Oh, just get on with it already!” I begged.
Conall reared back just a bit and I closed my eyes, but the blow didn’t come. I heard a whoosh and felt something hot as a fireball flew over me, slamming into Conall.
The Celtic warrior flew backward a couple of feet and screamed as another fireball smacked into him a second later.
“Get away from him!” Sheila screamed. I looked over at her. There was a tiny red line on her neck from where Arlan’s dagger had bit into her skin, and her finger had a small droplet of blood on it as well. She had another fireball in her hands.
Conall screamed something I didn’t understand and rushed her, so she let the last fireball fly. It hit Conall right in the chest, and he fell to the ground in a burning heap, smelling worse than his buddy.
I wasn’t sure just how bad of an injury these guys could come back from, but I was guessing being burned to cinders wasn’t on the list. Sucks for Conall.
Sheila walked over to me and beamed down at me. “Hey there, stranger,” she said. “Need a hand?”
I grinned back up at her. “Yeah, if you could get this deadweight off me, that’d be handy.”
I shoved on him, and Sheila pulled as well. Even Rick got in on the action a little bit. Before too long, I was finally free from being crushed to death.
“Thank you, both of you,” I said, my eyes going from Sheila to Rick.
“I’m sorry, Damian,” Sheila said, the words spilling out of her so fast they almost ran together. “If I hadn’t allowed myself to get caught, we’d still have the circlet and-”
“Stop,” I said, putting a hand out to calm her. “If anyone should be apologizing, it’s me. It’s my fault we’re all in this mess. I got you involved in this.”
“Nonsense,” Sheila replied. “Don’t be so hard on yourself. You couldn’t have known all of this was going to happen.”
“She’s right, you know,” Rick chimed in.
I shook my head and let out a sigh. “No, you two don’t get it. It really is all my fault. I’m the one who let Queen Boudicca free when I went after Grax’thor in the first place. If I hadn’t been so greedy, so focused on my own problems, none of this would have ever happened.”
The area went silent for a moment as I let that information sink in.
Rick, of all people, was the first one to break the silence. He put a hand on my back and patted me. “Hey, Sheila’s right. You couldn’t have known what was going to happen. This isn’t all your fault.”
Unbeknownst to good old Rick, his words brought a hint of a tear to my eye. He was starting to care for me!
I raised my head to look into his eyes. There was a hint of kindness there, and maybe… understanding? But how could that even be possible? How could he understand any of this? He didn’t even believe in magic.
And yet, here he was.
“Thanks, Rick,” I said, sniffing slightly and raising a hand to my face to cover up the tear as it finally fell. “That means a lot, buddy.”
Rick blushed a little. It was only there for a second, but it was there. “Aww,” he said, “don’t worry about it.”
He retracted his hand and looked away from me, and just like that, the moment was gone and he went back to his usual grumpy expression.
“So,” I said, “what should we do next?”
Rick scrunched his nose. “What do you mean? We lost, remember?”
Sheila nodded. “Yeah. They have everything now. Mei, Grax’thor, and the circlet. They can cast the binding ritual. And we still don’t know where they are.”
“True…” I said, rubbing my chin gently. “But I can’t give up. Not just yet. Not while Mei is still breathing. If there’s anything I can do to stop them, I’ll do it.”
I know what you’re thinking. Quite the change of attitude from this morning, huh? I’d been all doom and gloom then. Well, to be honest, that wasn’t my proudest moment. I’d just lost a fight to a bunch of goons and wrecked a car I couldn’t afford to replace. I hadn’t been thinking straight.
But Mei? Mei was my whole world at times. Yes, because she might know how to end my immortality peacefully, but also because she was my friend. She’d been there through all the dark times. Like the 70s. Now there was a dark time. And she’d seen me through all of it.
She deserved my best effort. Besides, I still had an ace up my sleeve.
Rick and Sheila were looking at me dumbfounded. I puffed up my chest a bit to look taller. “Well, there’s only one thing to do, then,” I told them. “We need to find their base.”
I glanced over at where Bevan was lying in a pool of his own blood. “And I think I know just how to do it. Here, help me drag Mr. Stankface into the car.”
I hadn’t been exaggerating about that part. These Celtic warrior guys really did stink.
My fingers reached for the switch on the side of the wall in Sheila’s basement, and I flicked it upward. A harsh, bright light filled the small room, blinding me for just a second.
It was about ten in the morning, meaning I was running out of time. This was the third day. The dragons would start their attack in a little under nine hours. Not exactly a lot of time to find Boudicca’s hidden base, get there, free Mei, and put a stop to the queen’s evil schemes.
But I had hope. I was pretty sure this plan would work. At least, it always did in the movies I’d watched. I’d never really had occasion to try it out myself.
Rick, Sheila, and I had all taken turns napping this morning so none of us would have to go take on a Celtic army -
