“What’s all the noise?” Tess asked, coming over to my bed, still rubbing her eyes. “Oh, Mr McQuade, I presume?”
“You presume right, now who the hell are you?”
“Tess McKinnon, you’ve met my sister, Ashley. That’s Flea and Natty.”
“Flea?” he asked with a curl of his lip.
“Yup, and Natty,” Tess gestured to a bleary-eyed Natty who was just starting to wake up.
“What’s with all the noise?” Natty drawled.
“What the fuck is that?” McQuade asked, taking a step backwards and reaching for the gun holstered at his hip.
“Now, now, there’s no need for that,” I said in a hurry. “It’s OK; Natty’s a friend.”
“What kind of shit-show is this? You share a room with a talking moose?” McQuade demanded, but his hand stayed away from the gun.
“Seriously!” I hissed at Tess, “A 1980s action hero is going to get us out of this mess?”
“That’s not just any hero, that’s Slate Rockwell!” she whispered. “He can make a fire by rubbing together two ice cubes!”
“Tess–”
“Guns carry Slate Rockwell for protection!”
“Tess!”
“He won an underwater breathing competition against a fish!”
“Tess, those are fucking memes, not reality! In real life, he’s just some old dude. We don
’t need some trigger-happy wanker shooting up the place and getting us all killed!”
“This will all work out, I promise.” She turned to Knox with a smile, “So, Mr McQuade, I’m so glad you’re here. You see, we’re in quite a bit of trouble and really need your help.”
“Oh, dear God,” I muttered.
“So, you see, the prince is likely to rape us girls and then kill and eat us for dinner.”
McQuade stood there, arms crossed over his broad chest. I wasn’t sure if it was because he was finding it hard to believe us or because it showed the muscles in his arms in their best light, seeing as he was wearing a shirt with the sleeves ripped out. The deep-brown eyes that hid under his beetled brow flicked from me to Tess and back again. “Why haven’t you reported this to the authorities?”
“Because the prince is the authority here,” I said. “Y’know, divine right and all that.”
“Hmph. Seems to me if what you’re saying is true, I just have to sit pretty here and I’ll be home by morning.”
“Yeah, that’s true, it’s just. . . .” I fell silent. What could I say? We’d laid out our predicament and he didn’t seem all that moved by it. I looked over at Gabe who was still out cold and shook my head. I felt it, the hard, painful prickling in my eyes and blinked furiously. I was not going to cry; I was not that girl. We were in a jam, but I would find a way out. We got Tess to read the McQuade book to test the curse; that it still worked and it did. I’m not sure why it did, but it did. We could work with that, maybe try and get the whole of the Round Table to turn up and run the prince and his men through in the name of gallantry. Breathe in through your mouth and out through your nose, Ash.
“Ah, fuck,” McQuade said, scratching at his impressively hairy chest, “What weapons do you have?” he said.
“None,” I said.
“Cars, bikes, shit, an overpowered moped would be something right now.”
“There’s a Harley and a dirt bike in the stables, but it would be difficult to get near them without alerting the prince’s men,” Flea said.
McQuade looked us all over, his face drawing down into an even more forbidding expression. It was as if our situation offended him personally. The stare drew out longer and longer until I felt like I had to say something to break the rising tension. Then the door opened. “You are due in the dining room in fifteen minutes and here are your clothes . . . Who is this?” Mellors asked.
“Knox McQuade and who the fuck are you, Rover?” Morris asked.