The wind rustled a stand of acacia, and had anyone been around, they would have paused to think about how odd the leaves sounded. In the rapidly descending dark the sounds seemed sharp, the leaves restless against each other and finally independent of the breeze.

It was still for a long moment. Then the leaves dropped as one in a sudden cascade, the precision flawless and unnatural. They spiraled away toward the ground in precise design, glistening with sharp angled facets of iridescence. Inches from the pavement they seemed to burst, the angles widening until they threw spars of prism-light onto buildings nearby when the first of them reflected on each surface. They leveled off, never touching each other or the ground, spreading out and away in an ever widening circle, slashing away on wings that lent enough speed to keep the idea of leaves in play. They vanished into the twilight without leaving any indication of where they were headed.

Only trees stood behind, bare in the middle of summer.

A closer look would reveal razor-sharp scores in the bark and branches as if from the clenching of thousands of tiny, enraged fists, the wounds deep and purposeful. They were a warning and a promise.

All wars required casualties.

The Fae had arrived.

##

Smitty would later repeat over and over to himself that it was not his idea, and he was a good friend and this was what good friends did, spending a weekend doing something they just didn't usually do. Maybe he was curious too, no big deal, and it was all in fun. He still wanted to go on record somewhere that he had been against taking Sid. He'd eat that later, but up front, it was not a good idea on principal.

Being out of your element was one thing. Hell, they'd played Ren Faire for real for a good long while when they'd ended up second star to the right and on 'til morning. He much preferred this lite version, with tickets and plainly marked entrance gates. He could dress up and wander around one of these medieval Disneylands for moral support or whatever. For a while, anyway. No problem.

Being out of your element with a dragon in tow was a whole separate matter.

"Been nice knowing you, Valory," Smitty said.

"Nah, nah." Ross slammed the rear driver door of his Pathfinder and winked at him. Sid's face was visible in the rear window, ears perked, glowing pearl-eyes narrowed to slits as she reared to brace her front claws up against the seat, her tail lashing.

They weren't about to tell Steve. Ross and Smitty had decided that early on. What the singer didn't know wouldn't hurt him; what the singer found out would only cause unnecessary trouble, and taking Sid to the Renaissance Faire definitely fell under Perry's category of 'trouble'.

Steve Perry was in New York City visiting friends and had been dumb enough -- and desperate enough -- to ask Ross to watch the little dragon. So, in a way, it was all Perry's fault. He hadn't even said to watch her; his exact words had been keep an eye on her because even Perry wasn't that stupid. Sid was more than capable of taking care of herself, and she had the claws and teeth to remind anyone who tried to forget.

However, she was also easily bored, immensely curious, and eager to wander to satisfy both. In Sid's case, "wander" meant "eat a cat" or "go for ice cream" or "scare the liver out of passing drivers", things that would be generally frowned upon. But you didn't tell a dragon to stay put, no matter how small it was. You didn't order The People around.

Right then, their resident ambassador of The People was rifling though the glove compartment and throwing whatever she didn't like onto Smitty's lap. A small squeak announced the discovery of a pack of spearmint Extra and Smitty watched with detached amusement and concern while Sid deftly unwrapped each piece with the fine tips of her claws.

"Perry'll never know," Ross was saying. "Sid might say something eventually, long after it's over, just to get his goat when he pisses her off, and by then it won't matter. Plus, I can kick his skinny ass any day of the week, mage or not."

Smitty smirked.

Sid gagged and a wad of sugarless gum was ejected onto the dashboard. "Poison," she said.

"Amen to that," Smitty said. "Give me the real stuff, any day."

Ross opened the driver's side door and glared. Sid was using the edge of Smitty's shirt to wipe at her tongue, and the scent of minty-fresh dragon wafted out of the car.

##

The pavement had ended abruptly and folks in tunic and hose were waving his car onto bumpy, hilly grass. Ross still wasn't sure of the wisdom of this, but it was too late to change his mind now.

His gaming friends had offered to make him garb for the Ren Fair, but he'd still had his Kern ambassadorial gear, cleaned and repaired, a deep blue laced-up shirt with a stylized winged scarab across the back, black breeches, silver knotwork at the hems and neckline. After what he'd seen the others wearing, he'd blend right in.

With one exception.

"Humans stupid," Sid snorted. She understood her role as accessory. Her eyes were bright as she curled around the passenger seat backrest and eeled back to the seat. She hadn't been still the entire trip.

Ross grinned at the little dragon in the rearview mirror. "Nah. Just selectively unobservant."

"You hope," Smitty murmured.

Ross laughed. He didn't really play Dungeons & Dragons with his friends anymore, not really, though he rolled dice like everyone else. Playing it was somewhat boring now, since he'd lived through the real thing. But he enjoyed the company; when they were on a roll, they were punsters as horrible as Smitty was, and they didn't care what he did for a living. For that matter, they hadn't pressed him for gory details about the band's disappearance, either, save for expressions of relief at him being okay...and offers to help him drive the ever-present press away. Ross was fairly certain that he didn't want to know how they would've done that. He was also certain that they would've succeeded.

He pulled into the spot just behind Kris, watched as the others tumbled out of their cars and started putting on the last bits of their garb. "Remember," Ross said quietly, to Sid, "go limp until you're on my shoulder."

Sid gape-grinned at him.

He slid out of the car, straightened his tunic, then wrapped the sword-belt on -- not that he was going to carry any weapons, but it looked good -- and passed a second belt to Smitty, who eyed it dubiously.

"What's all the loops for?"

"Knives," Ross said. " Pouches. Souvenir beer mugs."

Smitty eyed him, eyed the belt. "Beer mugs."

At that moment, a Faire-goer passed by, dressed in black leather-scales, chain mail, and skull mask, a huge two-handed broadsword strapped to his back, and several wooden beer mugs dangling from his waist.

"Um," Smitty said.

Ross grinned. "You can't be sober and dress like that."

Smitty's gaze was still on the costumed Faire-goer. "I'll stick to knives."

"I've got an extra dagger," Kris said from behind them, "if you want to borrow it."

Ross turned. She was the only woman here that wasn't dressed in wench gear. Kris wore an unbleached muslin tunic, black velvet hose, a black felt hat with a huge blue ostrich feather pinned to one side and a double-wrapped sword belt with a sheathed rapier at her side. Both her hands rested lightly on the pommel.

"You even know how to use that thing?" Ross said.

She grinned. "Want lessons?"

Her bearing reminded him of Sion. "Ah...no," he said instead.

"Wise grasshopper," Kris said.

Ross grinned, then reached into the car for Sid. The little dragon obligingly went limp until he placed her on his shoulder and straightened her halter -- something he'd cobbled together of silver lame and fine-linked chain, with a long slender plastic tube that led from the halter to his hand. If he fiddled with it, folks would think her a puppet.

"Cool," said another of his gaming group, a bulky Highlander in full tartan. The man was eyeing Sid and Ross's garb. "Never thought you were the type, Ross."

"He's not," Kris said. "Look at the tunic."

Ross raised an eyebrow.

"Scarab's hardly period," Kris said. "Especially a Journey scarab."

"Like a wench carrying a sword is," Ross said, grinning.

"Joan of Arc," Kris said.

"And look what happened to her," Ross said.

"Yup," Kris said. "Ran the English out of France and got them so scared of her that just invoking her name was blasphemy. I should be so lucky."

"Give it up, Ross," said the Highlander. "Arguing history with Kris is like arguing Journey makes good music. You won't win."

"You," Ross said with dignity, "just don't have any taste."

"I'm not the one playing that crap," the Highlander said.

Ross only grinned. But Kris was looking at Sid, and her gaze was intent. She saw Ross watching her, raised an eyebrow, shrugged, before turning away to follow after the rest of the group.

Ross said nothing, but Sid shifted on his shoulder. "Sees," Sid said softly.

"Selectively unobservant, my ass," Smitty said, at the same time.

##

They wandered past several Tarot readers, a booth demonstrating sundials and astrolabes, and a woodworker. A juggler went by in full jester garb, and somewhere out of sight there was a group playing lutes and bells. Everyone they passed seemed to be in character and having a good time. Ross was about to make a point of telling Smitty there'd been nothing to worry about when he felt Sid lift her head even though he wasn't trying to move her. He tensed and was about to whisper-scold her when she said, very clearly, "Flitters," in a voice that would have raised the hair on anyone's neck.

"Fritters?" Ross said, but Sid was sitting up on his shoulder, her claws digging in. Ross didn't dare show anything on his face. All he could do was start walking for the space between the two nearest tents. Smitty was asking him what the hell was going on, but Ross ignored him, trying to avoid getting a very odd set of piercings. How he managed to get out of sight without anyone getting a good look at the struggling coil of winged rage on his shoulder had to be luck, which went ahead and abandoned him after that.

Standing behind one of the tents, Ross let Sid down. She stood in the gravel for a moment on her hind legs, tail lashing, wings at half span. Ross unwound her makeshift harness from his hands as Smitty came alongside.

"No little dragon's room at the Honeybuckets?" he said.

Sid flashed away in a gleam of black scales and sinew, nothing adorable left in the predatory grace she used to scale a wooden fencepost. She stood atop and dug her talons into the wood, splintering it with a strength belied by her size, hissing, pearl-colored eyes rolled skyward.

Neither human bothered to ask her what was going on. They'd known her long enough to trust her.

A little warning would have been nice, though.

One moment, Sid was swiveling her head from side to side, watching, foretalons spread as if waiting to catch something. Then she snarled and snapped her wings out with a full-throated growl that would have put any pit bull to shame.

Something hit the burlap top of the tent to their right with a scratchy plop. It was followed by a blur of color and the whir of wings, and several somethings that looked like giant mutant dragonflies smacked into the tents around them.

"What the -" Smitty began, but he was drowned out by the loudest whirring he'd ever heard, and then Sid lashed out and caught something in her claws. Smitty got one good look; it had a humanoid shape and bizarrely long toes, skin tinted a faint robin's-egg blue. A double set of gorgeous iridescent wings graced a face and form so pug-nosed ugly that he was forced to think of a cicada. It struggled and chittered, then screeched as Sid shoved its top half into her mouth and crunched it like a breadstick. Blue phosphorescent goo dripped from her jaws.

Little legs flailed between her jaws, then stilled.

The whirring increased, as the screams started out on the fairway. There was a scratchy, needles-on-old-records sound, and a winged hailstorm descended. Thousands of hand-sized, multicolored bodies dropped out of the sky and clung to tents, people, the ground, any available surface.

Sid was shrieking and snatching at whatever she could, but they veered from her once they realized what she was doing, hovering out of reach, taunting her in high, chittering voices. Ross and Smitty quit staring when a peach-colored one landed on Ross and bared a tiny set of jagged, razor-sharp teeth at him before biting into his shirt. Smitty smacked it away, feeling a hard shell under his knuckles. Pretty little things with hideous faces and tinted walnut-shell bodies and frail, rice-paper wings.

"The powers that be have been dropping acid again, I see," Ross said, knowing he couldn't be heard and not caring.

Behind them, people were running, screaming, and trying to ward the things off as tents and costumes were rent by tiny claws. They were headed for any cover they could find, waving swords and flails. At least they were armed.

"Sid!" Ross shouted.

The dragon went on leaping and snapping, a rainbow of ichor dripping from her snout. Several dozen creatures had gathered in the air, careful to stay just out of her reach, their high pitched voices cursing her in a grating litany. She looked ecstatic in a vicious and purposeful way.

"Obsidian!"

She swiveled mid-air, just as the airborne Easter-egg hued cockroaches also noticed the pair of unarmed humans standing stupidly in the open and dove right for them.

Ross and Smitty both used every word they'd learned while touring and some they didn't, because, ow, tiny teeth and claws.

Sid jumped straight from the fencepost and landed on Ross's left shoulder, swiveled again, snapped, lashing out with claw and tail. The creatures scattered except for one Smitty managed to catch. It squirmed and screeched at him as he squeezed it around its chest and shoulders in one fist, fingers well away from its tiny shark-teeth.

The place was clearing out quick. Only a few folks were still running between what remained of the tents, slapping and swearing their attackers away.

Someone grabbed Smitty from behind. "C'mon, get to one of the buildings!" It was Kris, and she was right; the shops on the far side, across the grounds, were closer than their cars. She grabbed both their arms, wrenching them towards the buildings; she didn't seem to realize Ross's 'puppet' was lashing its tail. The area immediately around them stayed clear as they ran; Sid was keeping them at bay just by being visible.

Unfortunately, she'd also started giggling in addition to growling, something doubly unsettling.

"I'm glad you find this so funny," Kris snapped at Ross, as they ran.

"It's not me!" Ross started, but shut up when Smitty slapped him on the shoulder.

They dodged through the stand of trees that divided the faire and came out onto the main drag, seeing the sheer extent of the chaos for the first time. The air was thick with the damn things, flashes of color diving in and out among the remaining people in the open. They obscured everything, casting so many small shadows as to affect the amount of light that reached the ground. They were stripping the trees, shredding costumes, taking the awnings off buildings with their weight alone. They bounced off windows and hung from the wooden signs, gnashing and fluttering. It was the ticker tape parade that had been left out of Revelations.

Sid got their attention and their wrath, but not all of it. By the time the humans made it across the fairway, it was obvious that one building in particular had the greatest concentration of air-piranhas both around and on it.

A Starbucks.

Thousands of the little buggers perched on the awning, the roof, the trestle tables and the canvas umbrellas. Two of the umbrellas had collapsed and lay wilted on the ground, writhing with the creatures trapped underneath. The 'grand opening' banner was barely hanging on but had otherwise been left unscathed. Directly below it, burnt into a hanging wood sign, was the large circular company logo, a crowned mermaid. A wide swath of glittering invaders sat as close to the sign or on it as they dared, perfectly still, gazing raptly upward.

Kris had stopped, staring. "Oh no. They didn't. They didn't."

"Didn't what?" Smitty said.

"The Faire's been having financial trouble," Kris said absently, still staring. "They'd been talking of getting sponsorshop. But that...that...letting Starbucks in here? Oh gods..."

"You're worried about historical accuracy?" Smitty said. "Now?"

"Both of you, stow it." Ross shoved them, hard. "Move."

Since the other buildings were being defaced, it seemed safest to make a break for the Starbucks, even though it was covered in critters. Oddly complacent critters.

Kris kicked seven or ten or sixty-four on the way over, slapping their hard, shiny bodies with the flat of her rapier, but they made it inside with only one incident of attack. Sid snapped up three that got too close, crunching off the upper torsos and tossing the rest. Several long, delicate wings were stuck in the goo on her face, giving her an iridescent goatee.

There was a lone Barista left inside, cowering behind the counter with her green apron over her head. She didn't take it off when they barreled in and locked the door, so they left her alone. Adding a dragon to her freak-out of the day didn't seem to be the best remedy.

"She's having a bad Faire day," Smitty said.

All around, the other shops were being demolished inside and out, wares, tarot cards, astrolabes, and the occasional lute tossed and shredded on the fairway, but this place was untouched.

Smitty held his captive up. It felt warm and eggshell-smooth, but it was squirming, its tiny black bug-eyes popping with impotent rage. Its head was very round and there was no nose to speak of; all the space was taken up by eyes and mouth. It had three long fingers on each hand with bulbous ends and short, straight, needle-sharp nails. It made grating little chirps and chitters as it fought to twist its head enough to bite him.

Sid jumped to the counter and snarled at it, and it froze.

"Anybody seen one before?" Smitty said.

Kris was staring at Sid. She didn't look surprised, exactly, just very confused.

"Adult Swim on Cartoon Network," Ross said.

Kris was still staring.

Smitty waved the chittering, snapping handful of winged rage at her. "Snap out of it. Dragons seem any stranger than this?"

Kris blinked. "Right. Yeah. Uh...it looks like a Fae."

"Fae?" Ross said.

"Faeries," Kris said. "We've been invaded by...dammit, I can't even show up to a Ren Faire without getting this Brothers Grimm bullshit."

"Faeries like...Lady Chatterley?" Smitty said with a smirk.

"Lady Cottington, Smith," Kris said. "Gods."

"Tinkerbell here isn't gonna explain herself anytime soon," Ross said. "Any idea why the pillaging?"

Kris shrugged. "How should I know?"

There was a tik-tik-tik at the glass near the front of the store. When they looked, there were rows and rows of Fae gathering on the tables, railings and gravel, jostling each other for room.

"Good to eat," Sid said. "Enemies of The People. Sid eat them all."

"Not even your stomach's gonna hold 'em all," Smitty said to her.

"Enemies?" Ross said. "They from your part of the universe, Sid?"

Sid snorted, fluttering the wings stuck to her face with the motion. "No. Elsewhere. Come for taking over, come when called."

"Wonderful," Kris said. "So someone's called them."

"Nobody around here'd be calling this down," Smitty said. "Not just to get eaten. Sid, what's it take to call them?"

Sid scratched at a drying patch of lavender-tinted goo on her chest. "Signs," she said. "Many, many signs."

Kris sighed. "Great. Probably some idiot teens drawing stuff on the walls of a basement rec room."

"Not here," Ross said. "So what the hell around here is --"

He paused. And looked. Hundreds of white and green cardboard cups. Another 'grand opening' banner was hung over the counter. Many, many circles containing a mermaid that didn't really look like one. She kind of looked like a crowned chick holding a fish in each hand. She looked like a --

"Siren," Kris said. "It's a damned siren. It's a two-tailed melusine. Nice."

"They just opened here this year, didn't they?" Smitty said.

"Yeah," Kris said. "Right in the middle of a bunch of people whose heads are stuck in fantasy land. Or who want to be stuck in fantasy-land for the day."

"Desire call," Sid said. "Signs open."

Ross walked over and grabbed a cup from the stack next to the cash register. He came straight to Smitty and held the cup close to the hissing Fae so that the logo was pointed right at it. The Fae centered large black bug eyes on it and quit struggling.

It cooed.

"You have got to be kidding," Kris said.

"I always thought there was a conspiracy behind this whole coffee thing," Smitty said.

"Gods," Kris said. "And how many of these places are there in San Francisco?"

Ross sighed. "Hey, Sid. There's no way we're gonna get rid of the many, many signs. Ever. Any way to drive these guys away besides eating 'em?"

"New salad craze," Smitty said. "Man, I gotta put this thing down."

"Sid eat," Sid said.

"No," Ross said. "We might need it for something. Put it in this." He snagged a silver travel mug from the nearest shelf and held it open while Smith tried to jam it in. It used all its limbs to brace itself against the rim until Ross showed it the logo again. While it was distracted, Smitty poked it in and Ross twisted the top tightly. It made angry ping-ping noises against the metal from inside.

Ross handed it to Kris, who put it on the nearest table, where it jolted up and down.

"No driving," Sid said. "Just eat."

The Fae were piling up against the door and windows, little hands and faces flattened against the glass.

"I have a feeling a giant can of Raid won't do it," Kris said, keeping one hand on her rapier.

"I heard they hate iron," Smitty said.

"You'd hate iron, too," Kris said, "if three feet of it sliced you in half."

"Too bad they don't hate Iron Maiden," Ross said. "We could Noriega them out of here."

Something clunked behind the swinging doors to what was likely a storage room to the left of the counter. The three humans looked at each other. The dragon licked her chops and knocked a stack of cups over with her tail. The Barista squeaked from under her apron.

"Back door?" Kris said.

"Isn't that where most fai-" Ross started to say, but Kris hit him with a well-thrown newspaper that had been left behind on a table.

"There are vents that lead to the roof," came a small voice from behind the counter, muffled by an apron.

Kris kept an eye on the front door to make sure the Fae weren't smart enough to pick the lock while Ross, Smitty and Sid approached the single silver swinging door to the back. Something was definitely shuffling around in there.

All pretensions of stealth went to hell when Sid stuck her nose under the door. An angry shrieking began on the other side, and Sid launched herself up, hit the door and slammed it inward.

The room erupted into a fluttering, clawing, biting, day-glo chaos of wings and claws and yelling, and bags of coffee. One of the Fae (glowing brilliant orange) bit Smitty and he smacked it repeatedly with a silver mylar bag from a basket that sported a sign insisting the contents were GROUNDS FOR THY GARDEN! in happy medieval-style letters, but it had no effect on the grouchy creature. It seemed impervious to blunt impact. It dug its claws into the bag and hung on, and when Smitty tried to smack it against a shelf, the claws tore holes wide enough to spray used grounds everywhere.

The day-glo menace fell to the floor and writhed, tiny mouth gaping, tiny black tongue hanging out all speckled with grounds. It thrashed around for a moment, then stilled.

"I love irony," Smitty said, then flung handfuls of grounds at the others.

Sid had managed to eat two, so there were only another eight or ten or sixty four to sprinkle. They died like the first one, flailing around and then leaving crunchy little corpses. The first one had already dried to a husk and was crumbling into bright orange dust that looked like sidewalk chalk.

"Must've been decaf," Kris said, poking at it with her rapier.

"Okay," Ross said. "We've got a place full of coffee, so we don't have to eat them all."

"Just many," Sid said.

"Grab all the beans you can," Ross said.

Guatemala Antigua. Lightnote Blend. Sulawesi. Sumatra decaf. All these bags and more were tucked under arms and into shirts. They blocked the vents and then gathered at the metal door in the back, listening to the faint scratching beyond.

"Not as many," Sid said with audible disappointment.

"Good," Ross said. "We can get a smaller group first, then figure out how to take care of the worshipers out front."

Sid spread the crumbled faery around on the tiled floor, leaving a chalk-smear of color. "No good this way."

"Maybe you can add water later," Smitty said.

Kris punctured every available bag with her rapier, and the dark full roasted reek of coffee filled the space.

"On three," Ross said.

"No," Kris said. "The drummer counts."

Ross snorted. "Right. Better me than the Little Drummer Boy."

"Perry's not here," Smitty said, with a slight grin. "You have to settle for the Big Drummer Boy."

"That's not what the Plaster Casters said," Ross said.

Sid was perched on a storage shelf near the door. Her head cocked. "Joke?"

Smitty and Ross looked at each other. Ross took refuge in the last resort of babysitters everywhere. "Ask Steve. He can tell you all about the Plaster Casters."

"God, you like living dangerously," Smitty muttered.

"Just someone open the damn door," Kris snapped.

There weren't even that many out there -- there was no logo out back. At first, there was nothing but silence as several dozen pairs of giant reflective black eyes centered on the humans.

When a shitstorm of coffee beans flew out the door, there was fluttering and screeching and then --

Nothing.

Dozens of tiny mouths gaped with the promise of retribution.

Naturally, they couldn't get the door closed fast enough, and another battle erupted in the storeroom. There were only a half dozen of them, but one leaped, dodged Sid, and latched onto Ross's hair. Smitty noted for the record that Ross screamed like a girl and Kris did not. Sid ate what she could and then sat on one of the shelves and belched while Smitty sprinkled grounds on the rest.

"That's a no on the beans," Kris said.

"Grinding all these beans is gonna take awhile," Smitty said.

"Not just grind," Sid said from her shelf, nearly grinning. "Water-run."

Ross blinked. The sign behind him, now tilted to one side and smeared with pretty goo, continued to say GROUNDS FOR THY GARDEN!

"As in, already brewed," Kris said. "More wonderful."

"Water-run unlocks," Sid said, like it was common knowledge.

"Guess we found their new summer slogan," Ross said.

"So who exactly was babysitting who this week?" Smitty said.

"Let's get our Barista," Kris said. "We need more hands."

It took some doing to get her - Marcy - out from under her apron and to stop doing the get it off me dance every time she looked toward the windows. The nuts with swords were in her store, the outside of which was covered with day-glo bugs. They hadn't covered that in coffee-college. Once she realized that she wielded the secret to conquering the bug problem, she calmed down a bit and set to grinding a large bag of house blend. They were able to convince her that it was okay to mix the kinds. Corporate was not going to get her. Kris manned (wo-manned) one of the giant carafes and Ross got the other. Smitty got what he could out of the espresso machine. In a matter of minutes there were a lot of hot, damp grounds to work with in addition to two dry bags left out back.

Sid perched on the edge of the counter, wrinkling her nose at all of it. The Barista resolutely kept her back turned. She was not paid enough to deal with stuff like that, and she didn't think these people would be leaving anything in the tip jar.

"Okay," Ross said. "We can...what, go out back and sneak around and hit them? Find a way onto the roof and dump -- "

"Make a big line of grounds in front of the door," Kris said. "Last line of defense. No other way to do it but open the door and go to work."

They looked at her for a moment.

Marcy put her apron back over her head.

"We wait any longer, a news crew will be here," Kris said.

"And this'd make national news," Smitty added. "All the way to New York, right?"

Ross shot him a glare.

Marcy fumbled around without taking her apron off her head, headed toward the bathrooms. Safer there.

"Hey, Sid," Smitty called.

Sid eeled along the counter like a spill of dark water, gleaming and quick, winding herself up to perch on the soda fountain. She looked at the piling horde at the windows and showed every single tooth. "No more scream-dance?" she said.

"Right," Ross said. "You got enough room for a few more flitters?"

Sid leaned forward off the fountain a little and made a bring it motion with her claws that was so human it almost made Smitty laugh.

Almost.

They put down a swath of grounds to retreat behind if they had to and tried not to slip in any of it. A rousing round of paper, scissors, rock determined that Ross was going to have to open the door and take a few bites for the team.

"If this was an episode of The A Team, they'd have figured out how to rig the espresso machine to spray grounds in a wide arc, for six miles, and --"

"Eat now," Sid said.

Armed with coffee-scoops, the humans stood at the ready. The Fae stilled a little as Ross approached the door, staring at him with pug-faced disdain. One began knocking its head against the glass.

"Seen one mosh pit, seen 'em all," Ross said, and swung the door inward.

Letting them inside seemed to go against all reason, but it was easier to fling the grounds around and hit the maximum number of targets that way. If nothing else, it was easy enough to smack them to the floor and let them come into direct contact with the grounds when they got too close. There were dozens and then hundreds of crunchy things underfoot in less than a minute, ground to bright-hued dust and leaving nothing but wings intact. Kris and Ross made it outside (rubbing one's hair with wet grounds kept the critters out), flinging grounds up onto what was left of the awning and umbrellas. The Fae kept flocking in anyway, unable to resist the lure of their siren idol. Sid leapt and whirled, leaving scores of tiny half-eaten corpses behind to crumble on the coffee-strewn floor.

Several minutes later, Ross shook a snarling, snapping cult member off his leg and looked up to discover that there were only a few still fluttering around, looking lost. He was knee-deep in jewel-and-pastel-tinged crumbles and coffee grounds and J.K. Rowling had still not come running out with Ashton Kutcher to tell him he's been Punk'd.

He could hear a distant siren and decided he'd had enough fun for one day.

Kris hit the last few with splats of grounds, then they all looked at each other to take stock. They were all covered in coffee grounds. Sid was laughing.

"I don't feel like being interviewed," Ross said.

"I don't feel like being sued by Starbucks," Smitty said.

"I don't feel like being seen with any of you," Kris said. "No offense, Sid. Take care of these jokers, right?"

"Easy," Sid said, wading through the crunchy mess to Ross and clinging to his arm when he leaned over and offered it. She curled onto his shoulder.

Kris dodged out of the shop, towards the main gate and the parking fields.

Ross and Smitty shuffled away, around the side of the shop, glad the main drag was still clear as they crossed. Kris was already gone when they reached Ross's car. Sid coughed a little. "Stuck," she said.

"Got a little mythical creature stuck in your throat?" Smitty said. "I know just the thing for it."

That was how they came to be sitting at a McDonald's several miles from the fairgrounds and nowhere near a Starbuck's. Not that they could see, anyway. They did cast suspicious glances at the arches every so often. You just never knew. Smitty and Ross just had coffee, but Sid had curled around them, Sid had looked at them with wide, innocent eyes, and Sid now had a chocolate milkshake. She didn't bother with the straw, had growled at the lid until Ross popped it off. Then she'd sunk most of her head deep into the cup.

Smitty had never heard those kind of noises from her. He hoped they were normal for a little dragon.

There was a slurping gurgle. Sid raised her head from the cup. Over half of her snout was dripping with milkshake.

Smitty couldn't help it. Laughter bubbled up, and he collapsed back into the plastic bench and sprawled over the table. Ross was grinning; Sid only blinked for a moment with wide-eyed innocence, then her snout gaped in laughter. Her tongue snaked out, licked off the chocolate.

##

It took two days for the Starbucks to reopen. The news reported something about a freak locust infestation and surmised that the Starbucks had been looted and vandalized in the confusion. The only employee on duty during the incident could not be reached for comment.

Once the shop reopened, one of the souvenir travel mugs would not stay on the shelf, no matter how many times it was balanced back into place.

It didn't matter anyway. Some guy bought it.