“Don’t worry, officer,” he murmured. “When we’re done with the pixies, we’ll start on you—the distillery works on people just as good as pixies.”

  I felt the fear cross my face, and he straightened up, laughing.

  “Come on,” he said, nudging his companion, and they sauntered away, the leader of the pair turning to make a pistol movement with his hand as he left. He mimed shooting each and every one of us, before turning the corner of an enormous crate.

  I was trying to think of something comforting to say, when the burning sensation resumed, to be followed shortly after by a faint tugging. I felt the handcuffs shift, loosen, and finally give. Before I could bring them out in front of me, I felt two small palms press down on my wrists, as though someone was trying to tell me to stay still, and keep my hands in place.

  I leant back against the bollard and tilted my head up to scan the catwalks. As I did so, the familiar shape of one of the squad’s MP5 was placed in my palms. Again, small hands rested on my wrists, as though signaling me to wait.

  I looked across at Mouse, Albino and Blondie, and noticed they were sitting very still, with their heads bowed forward. Every now and then, one of them would sneak a glance up at me, and I risked entertaining the idea that they, too, had been freed and armed. A sidewards glance at Dylan, earned me a slight smile and a wink. Him, too, then.

  I waited, watching as the row of cauldrons was filled, imagining I could hear faint cries, right up until they fired up the burners. And that was when I caught the slightest hint of an all-too-familiar smell.

  “Shit!” I muttered, struggling not to shout a warning. “Shitshitshitshitshit!”

  I looked up, and saw the Mouse, the Albino, and Blondie looking at me with mild alarm. I glanced sidewards and Tall-Dark was doing the same.

  “Shit.”

  “What is it?” Dylan’s voice was little more than a murmur, but I caught it.

  “That smell.” I must have spoken louder than I thought, because Blondie raised her head and took a sniff, with the Albino mirroring her every move. Watching him, I saw Dylan’s nostrils flare.

  “Yeah?”

  “That’s what I smelt before the night club blew.” This time, I didn’t keep my voice down at all, and my words carried to one of the dust runners standing near another pile of pixie crates. He turned towards me.

  “What did you say?” he demanded.

  “I said, that I smelt that smell just before the night club stage I was standing on blew up,” I repeated, raising my voice, so that it carried.

  Help was nearby, I remembered, and it probably needed to be warned just as much as anyone else.

  I watched as the dust runner raised his head, and sniffed. He frowned and then sniffed again, and, this time, his eyes widened in alarm.

  “Clostrel!” he screamed. “Everybody out! Grab a crate and go! Go! Go!”

  Clostrel—an elven explosive ignited by heat.

  “Hey!” I exclaimed, as the warehouse erupted into a hive of activity. “Hey! What about us!”

  “Too bad!” the dust runner yelled, as he headed for the door, a crate of pixies under each arm.

  I waited until the immediate area was clear, and the dust runners were too busy making for the exits to take any notice of the rest of us.

  Unauthorized content usage: if you discover this narrative on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Go!” I said, bringing my hands out from behind my back, and settling the MP5 in front of me.

  “Go!” said a small voice in my ear. “Get out of here!”

  “Go! Go! Go!” came another voice, one that didn’t belong to the dust runners, or me, or the pixie standing on my shoulder with his hands entwined in my hair.

  “Grab a crate!” I ordered. “Grab two, if you can!”

  I wanted to save more, but I wasn’t sure if we’d get out of the building as it was. I figured the dust runners wouldn’t be looking too closely at anyone carrying a crate, not when what was in the crates was so important to their business. I was banking on it, to get us out of the building and to the perimeter without being stopped.

  It should have worked. It would have worked, if the Albino hadn’t stopped beside me as we grabbed pixie crates.

  “Blake’s an elf,” he said, keeping his voice low. “And he hates these guys.”

  And he grabbed two crates and about faced, heading for the door.

  Red? An elf! Shit! Why hadn’t I picked that? It explained why he was using the intel we found to do damage instead of help make an arrest. I followed the Albino’s example and lifted from two crates down. Dayum but these little guys were heavy…and then it struck me that I could save a lot more of them if I just opened the crates.

  Lowering my load to the ground, I pulled off the lid.

  “Go!” I shouted. “Get out of here. The place is going to blow!”

  I didn’t stop, I unstacked crates and lifted lids as fast as I could. When I looked up and saw the rest of the team doing the same, I almost cried.

  “Get out of here!” I screamed. “Get clear! You don’t have to die here!”

  “Right with you, boss!” Blondie quipped back, and Dylan just laughed.

  The Mouse didn’t say anything, just worked as fast as he could to get the pixies free.

  “You’re all crazy! You know that, right?” But the truth was I was glad they were there, glad we could get more pixies out than we could if we ran. I didn’t remember how long it had taken from the first whiff of clostrel, to the big bang on stage, and I wasn’t thinking about it, now. All I wanted to do was make every second count—and that’s when I realized the pixies weren’t leaving.

  They weren’t leaving, but they were hauling lids off crates, just as fast as we were. Sure, it took four of them to lift a lid, but they did it fast. Soon, the team and I were just unstacking the crates, working in an ever-growing swarm of pixies to clear the warehouse before the clostrel went up.

  It wasn’t until we’d cleared most of one stack that I realized we were still there, that there’d been no earth-shattering kaboom, no wall of wind and sound…and that there was no longer the smell of clostrel growing in the air. All we could see was the cloud of pixies surrounding us. All we could hear was the deafening buzz of their wings, the high-pitched shouts of encouragement that passed between them as they worked…and the crack of semi-automatic fire from outside.

  Somewhere in all that, I thought of the burners, and headed over to where I thought I remembered seeing the control panel. Failing that, I was going to find the power leads and pull them out of the wall. The burners couldn’t run without the power, and the clostrel wouldn’t explode without the heat of the distillery at full flood. If I could stop it from reaching full flood… If it wasn’t already too late.

  But the smell of clostrel was already fading. Someone else had reached the controls and power leads before me. No one was going to use this distillery without some serious repairs. I thought of Red. Surely, he hadn’t left the success of his operation to chance?

  Ignoring the sound of small arms fire outside, ignoring the buzz of a myriad of wings, and a thousand chattering voices—even ignoring Dylan and the Albino’s shouts, I couldn’t find him. Finally, I resorted to calling.

  “Blakeney!” I shouted, turning on the spot, and trying to see past the whirling pixie swarm.

  He did not answer, at least, not straight away.

  By the time Dylan’s back-up had finally worked their way through the dust runners, and made it inside, I still hadn’t found Red, but we made the arrests, and shut down the operation, and then we handed the pixies over to Repatriation.

  I found Blakeney’s response on my desk when I finally got back to the office.

  Hey Babe, it read. You stopped to save them, and, so, I stopped to save you. Thank you for the two years past. It was most instructive. I will not be returning to the squad. You’d only have to lock me up, and I have too much left to do to ever let that happen. Some other time, perhaps.

  I stared at the note for far too long, lost in memory of Blakeney in his human form before we’d broken up, and very glad I’d met Dylan.

  “That bastard!”

  Blondie’s indignation yanked me from my reverie, and I realized I was no longer on my own…and that my team were very adept at reading over my shoulder. Looking around, I met Dylan’s gaze and shook my head.

  “You look beat,” he said, and I nodded.

  “Story of my life,” I managed.

  “Yeah? Mine, too,” he quipped back, and we laughed.

  This time, none of us bothered heading home. The bunk room was empty, and it had been a long couple of days…also noises from the coffee room told us our shift was finally over. We might be a permanent man down, but at least there was time for some shut-eye before the guys from Internal Investigations arrived.

  I glanced at the Albino.

  “So,” I managed. “How d’you like the job so far?”