Tigerheart by Peter David Page A

possessed when one was eagerly anticipating revenge most dire upon someone who had done one wrong. “He’s there!” said the splendidly angry Miss Fix.
    “He? You mean The Boy?”
    “Who else?” Fiddle said. “There’s no one else in the entirety of the Anyplace who matters.”
    “I suppose that’s true.”
    “And now we’re here, and you can help me get my revenge.”
    Although talk of revenge was all well and good when the Anyplace had been something in the abstract, being discussed in the security of his bedroom, now that Paul had arrived, the impending reality of the situation was beginning to drape its uneasy cloak around him. “How, exactly, are we going to go about getting it?” he said.
    “It? You mean revenge?”
    Paul nodded.
    Fiddle floated in front of his face, her fluttering wings keeping her moving backward even as Paul angled toward the Anyplace. “You’ll kill him for me, obviously.”
    Paul stopped in midair. “Kill him?”
    Not realizing that Paul had ceased his forward motion, Fiddle fluttered several yards away from him before darting back toward him, a frown on her tiny face. “Of course. Why, what else did you think?”
    “I don’t know!” Paul said. He was starting to drift toward the water without realizing it. “I thought we’d…taunt him or something.”
    “Taunt him.” Fiddlefix sounded less than enthused. “He wishes me to death and you think the appropriate response is a severe taunting? You silly ass.”
    “Stop calling me that!”
    “Then stop being it!” Fiddle said, who really was a most rude little thing.
    “Why don’t you kill him, if you’re so upset with him? I was coming here in hopes he could find me a new baby sister. You’re the one who apparently wants to see him toes up. What do you need me for, if blood is all you desire?”
    “Because I can’t kill him,” Fiddle said impatiently. “Pixies don’t kill. It’s not allowed. If I could kill, I wouldn’t have needed the Vagabonds to try to rid me of the Gwenny.”
    “Why isn’t it allowed?”
    “Because it’s wrong.”
    “But then if it’s wrong, why do you want
me
to do it?”
    “Why should I care if
you’re
doing something wrong?”
    “But if you’re encouraging me to do it,” Paul said in exasperation, “then that’s practically the same as you doing it yourself!”
    “Practically isn’t the same as exactly. By the way, you’re about to be eaten.”
    “What…?”
    So involved in his discussion with Fiddlefix had Paul been that he had drifted too close to the ocean. The soles of his feet were dangling directly above a couple of sharks, patiently waiting with their mouths open. With a yelp, Paul immediately rebounded heavenward while Fiddlefix flew in a circle around him, laughing in that ringing way she had. Under other circumstances he might have found it charming, but these were not those circumstances.
    “You could have warned me!”
    “I did,” she pointed out when she stopped laughing.
    Before Paul could respond, there was another resounding noise, and this time Paul recognized it for what it was. “Was that…a cannon?” he said.
    “Pirates,” Fiddle said with rising excitement in her voice. “Where there’s pirates, The Boy will undoubtedly be. Come on.” When Paul hesitated, she tugged him firmly by the front of his shirt with even greater strength than he would have credited her with. He could not be certain, but it seemed that the light she generated was growing brighter the closer she drew to the Anyplace.
    “But…when we find him—am I still supposed to…?”
    “We’ll sort it out,” Fiddle said, brimming with a confidence that Paul did not feel.
    He gave up trying to direct the path of his flight, for Fiddle was hauling him along like a child dragging a pull toy on a string. They angled around and down; and, sure enough, there was a pirate ship floating offshore. Paul felt an undeniable thrill, witnessing firsthand the sort of thing that had