Priceless

strayed from the butt of his gun.
    O’Shea obediently slid back to his side of the seat, and I sucked in a large lungful of air. Moments later another officer joined the first and we were off to the police station. Or at least, that was what I thought. About ten minutes into the drive the silence broke.
    The young officer turned to his partner. “Where’s our escort?”“ I thought we were going to be flanked by the FBI?”
    In answer, the older cop shook his head. “Pull over.”
    What was this? The young cop did as he was told, without question, putting the car in park. Not a good thing, even I knew that.
    “Shit.” O’Shea mumbled under his breath. “Be ready.”
    For what? I wanted to ask—
    The older cop pulled his gun, placed it right against his partner’s head and pulled the trigger, the shot reverberating, shaking my eardrums. Blood and brain matter splattered the inside of the cop car in a macabre graffiti. I almost pulled my hands up to my ears, at the last second managing to keep them behind me, hiding the fact they were no longer cuffed.
    The older cop’s image wavered, and then I stared at one of the ugliest trolls I’d ever seen. Not that any of them are particularly handsome, but he won the ‘nasty looks’ contest hands down. Orange and yellow spotted skin hung in folds off his body, the clothes he’d been wearing tore and revealed far too much for my taste. His four-fingered hand clutched at the gun and he waved it at us, one eye hanging from its socket, the other blinking rapidly as if to clear some unseen haze.
    “Get out,” the troll commanded.
    I knew there was a reason this would work out in our favour. “Can’t, no door handles inside. It’s a human thing you know.” I shrugged. “You want us out you need to get the door open for us.”
    Grumbling, the troll smashed the side door to let himself out.
    Now it was my turn to be pithy. “Be ready.”
    “For . . .” O’Shea started to ask when the troll grabbed the door on my side and wrenched it off.
    “Get out.”
    Sliding carefully, slowly, across the seat, I wracked my brain for the best way to handle this. Trolls were sketchy at the best of times. One minute your friend, the next they were trying to eat you alive. This one didn’t look to be interested in making new friends. He (and yes it was a he by way his double genitalia hung nearly to his mid-thigh) glared at us and clicked his broken teeth together, bits of tooth flicking out around him. The only upside I could see was if we had something he wanted, he could be swayed to our side, momentarily at least. Trolls were fickle, and that could work in our favour.
    I stepped out of the car. The six-foot tall troll stepped back, his hanging eye staring around as if seeing us for the first time. “You’re prettier than they said. Those witches were right; you will be a fun time.”
    Ugh, that was not what I wanted to hear, not the part about the fun or the fact that he’d been sent by the black Coven. Both of his, um, members started to rise as his hanging eyeball roved up and down my body.
    A long, split tongue licked his lips. “I could let you go if you do something nice for me,” the troll said, stepping forward.
    “No,” O’Shea said, stepping around me, putting his body in the line of fire.
    “This is not the time to get all white knight on me,” I said, keeping my voice low.
    The troll snarled and lifted the gun, his finger twitching against the trigger.
    Using my hip, I bumped O’Shea out of the way and walked closer to the troll, swaying my body as seductively as I could and batting my eyes, much to his delight, if the way his loose hanging eye lit up was any indication.
    “You know, I always wondered what a double whammy would be like,” I said.
    The troll puffed up his chest, his free hand stroking down the folds of skin that hung from his body to cup one of his overlong members.
    I struggled to hold back the gag. That was not attractive in the least, but I kept moving forward, closer to the troll, and the gun he held leveled on O’Shea. Sure, it could backfire, it could explode, hell, it could do all sorts of weird things. But after seeing it blow out that young officer’s brains all over the inside of the car, I wasn’t going to take any chances.
    There was only one weak spot I would be able to reach, and so even though I didn’t want to, I sidled up to his hanging bits.
    With an exaggerated slowness, I lifted my hand and placed it on the