The Wicked & The Dead (Faery Bargains Book 1)

by Melissa Marr

  “Nephew,” the king said. “You are a credit to your mother’s cleverness.”

  Even in my lust-soaked mind, I could hear the king’s anger. Whatever history they had was hidden between words that sounded kind on the surface. They weren’t, though.

  Eli bowed. When he straightened, he said, “I shall return to meet with you, Uncle. We will begin the work of learning how to transition our people should disaster strike.” He met the faery king’s gaze. “But I would ask you to strive to be hale and hardy, to employ the poison testers to full advantage, to do all that you can.”

  “Indeed.”

  “And I wish you fertility, uncle, so that this gift can be bestowed upon a worthier son,” Eli added.

  “So mote it be,” I whispered.

  Both men glanced at me and gave me impenetrable stares. I shrugged. What else could I do? I wasn’t marrying Eli. I wasn’t popping out a baby. And I certainly wasn’t interested in an eternity in Elphame. I wasn’t abandoning my family, my mother, or my responsibility to New Orleans.

  I had no idea before what I’d evolve into, but I was even less prepared for what would happen now that I’d been injected.

  No marriage.

  No kids.

  No trying to build a family I’d destroy the next time my magic decided to call a graveyard over for tea. I kept my expression passive, hoping to hide my emotional turmoil.

  The king stood and bowed. He sounded more impressed than angry when he said, “Welcome to our family, Geneviève of Crowe. May you find haven and happiness among the shelter of our trees.”

  Despite everything, he sounded sincere, and all I could do was bow back. I knew I was to curtsy, but dammit, I wasn’t going to pretend to be dainty. Let them all grit their teeth. When I figured out how to safely break my engagement, they’d be glad to see me go.

  I straightened and walked out. The dead still needed my attention in New Orleans, and fiancé or not, I was going to go home and handle the problems I’d had to put on hold while my body processed the near-toxic dose of venom the grieving widow jabbed into my body.

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  I left Eli with his uncle and walked in the general direction of away from them. The ground was thick with greens, browns, and whites. In the forest undergrowth, trails twisted in a dozen directions, and dark gnarled branches bent like doorways. I had no idea where any of them went, and setting off into a fairy tale wood in the actual home of the fae seemed like a terrible plan.

  Instead I walked slowly in a general “away from them” route. Not exactly precise, but it was as close as I had to an actual direction. Eli had said he’d “return” so that meant he was intending on coming home to New Orleans with me. I might not be able to deal with my accidental engagement, but I could still do my job. I had to—and not just because the widow Chaddock decided to inject me with venom, ruin my life, and oh, yeah, now I was fucking engaged. Nope, not because I was furious, and definitely not because it was complicating the absolute hell out of my already bonkers life.

  Okay, maaaaybe that was a factor. Stopping her was also the right thing to do. I mean, I wasn’t going to go all shock and “why, I never” over murdering her husband. I’d killed my father. Sometimes families were complicated. Injecting Mr. Odem? Me? That was two so far. She was looking a lot like a well-dressed serial killer.

  Also, I was engaged because of it.

  I took several calming breaths, wishing I could recall that “inhale peace” stuff they did in my one and only attempt at yoga. Witch or not, I wasn’t good at meditating. I was more likely to be one with my surliness than peace.

  Focus.

  Concentrate.

  Details. Details always helped. The root of the problem was the person or people who had been injecting businessmen. Widow Chaddock and her friend. Why? I forced myself to weigh more facts. There were two dead businessmen so far. I didn’t know how many others there were, but the grumpy-venom-injecting-women were fucking with people’s lives, including mine, and it was pissing me off.

  “Geneviève?”

  Eli was finally at my side, and he didn’t even have the grace to look guilty about the mess we were in now. He was hesitant, at least, but it wasn’t enough. A part of me wanted to tear into him.

  The rest of me was all in on compartmentalizing this mess and fucking with him. “I can’t believe he fell for that,” I said lightly.

  “Fell for. . . what?” He reached out to touch a thick tree, as if petting it.

  “You’ve bought time, so you get to come home.” I stared at Eli, trying not to think about the fact that this accidental engagement meant we absolutely, positively wouldn’t be getting naked. My libido had some strong opinions on that decision. With an internal whisper of “down, girl,” I schooled my expression well enough that I might have been fae, and added, “It’s not as if we’re actually engaged.”

  “Geneviève. . .”

  “Am I a citizen of Elphame?” I prompt.

  “No.” Eli’s expression tightened.

  I smiled sweetly. “Then why would you or he think I am bound by this?”

  Eli stopped mid-step. “We had a bargain. I claimed my kiss and chose you—”

  “And you, Eli of Stonecroft, may be bound by that kiss and that king’s dictates. I, citizen of New Orleans and witch-draugr, am not.” I crossed my arms. “You claimed your kiss. End of the deal. Resolved. There is no further significance to it.”

  I paused.

  “Except the obvious,” I added. “I like you. A lot.”

  He grinned. “You are remarkably infuriating.” Eli leaned in and kissed my cheek. “Shall we return to our fair city, my crème brûlee?”

  “Why do you do that?” I stared past him to a glimmering doorway in the copse of trees that hadn’t been there when we walked to our meeting with the king.

  “What?”

  “The dessert thing.” The doorway glowed brighter. He had to see it. “Why do you call me dessert names?”

  Eli laughed. “My people crave the taste of rich desserts, cream, decadent tastes. And you, my love, I cra—”

  “Got it,” I interrupted. I blushed, and then I sighed at the realization that the sex I thought was on the horizon was now out of reach. Engaged and intimate? I wasn’t about to risk that. “Is that our exit? The glowing thing.”

  “It is.”

  The tree he’d been petting unfurled a twist of branches that seemed woven. Inside were my weapons. Eli handed me my holster, gun, longsword, and short sword. They’d been held inside the arms of a tree. I didn’t ask why or how or any of it. I accepted my gear, motioned to the blindingly bright doorway and asked, “Will you open that? Or am I stuck here?”

  “After you, Geneviève,” he said gallantly, and the door slid open. “Let us go to New Orleans.”

  We stepped into the city midday. I remembered that a month of days in Elphame was only hours in my world. So, it was the same day I’d left, but a few hours later.

  We were at Eli’s house, and while I had questions on how here was connected to there—and thinking of how hard that must’ve been like knowing his world was passing by that close to him—now was not the time. I started to follow Eli to the house, but that felt like wasting time.

  “Tres.”

  Eli glanced at me.

  “She’ll kill him.” I motioned in the direction of Eli’s car. “Can we—”

  “I need the keys, bonbon.” He gave me a smile. “I knew where we needed to go, too, but I cannot flow. . . and you choose not to.”

  I nodded. He did know me, and know what needed to be done, so I stood there awkwardly in my fae-woven yoga pants and tunic. I was barefoot still. That seemed perfectly fine in Elphame, but not so much in New Orleans. My city might be wet, but I’d seen everything in our streets from Mardi Gras beads to chicken bones, syringes to vomit. I needed to attempt to wear his oversized-for-me shoes or swing by my place.

  I started up the stairs, to tell him, only to see Eli descending with
keys and a pair of boots. Boots that looked suspiciously small for him. Quality leather boots.

  “What size are . . .” My words dwindled at his expression. I accepted the boots.

  “Your size, Geneviève,” he said drily. “Why do you continually find these things confusing?”

  “Because no one else I know randomly keeps things in my size in their house,” I said tightly.

  “They are not your fiancé, though, are they?”

  “That just happened, Eli.”

  He smirked. “So, you acknowledge that it happened? We are engaged.”

  I sighed and walked toward the car. “Piss off.”

  His laughter made me glad he couldn’t see my smile. I would cede this point. Arguing, debating, with a fae took a level of alertness I currently lacked.

  As Eli opened my door, he smiled at me as if we were both in on a secret.

  I said nothing, merely put my boots on and stared out at my city. I was grateful that I’d been able to return to it. I mean, it wasn’t the pristine, safe, natural escape that was Elphame. It was home, though. I felt a tie to it, not the same one to the soil where I was born, but one wrought of choice and blood. I protected the city. It was mine.

  As Eli drove us to the Chaddock house, I could feel death in pockets of space. Graves. Draugr. No magic needed—or at least no conscious choice to extend my magic. My sense of the dead was simply there, like hearing or sight.

  When we arrived at the Chaddock house, Eli stared at me a moment too long, and I knew that my eyes had shifted. My vision was unsettling; both my grave sight and normal sight were layered together.

  We approached the gate to be buzzed into the Chaddock Estate. This time, no one replied.

  I could feel a draugr-sized pocket inside the house, so I zapped the gate with a pulse of magic. I never did such things if I could avoid it. Leaving a gate broken was a special sort of wrong when you knew it was there to keep out things that wanted to gnaw your face. Today, the face-gnawer was inside.

  “Biter,” I explained, jerking my head toward the house.

  I pushed open the gate.

  At the door to the Chaddock House, Eli twisted the knob. It was unlocked. Inside the house was seemingly empty, but I felt the presence of death. Gun in hand, I crept up the stairs. There was a possibility of life in the house, too, but the pulse of the dead was too strong to ignore. I had to reach the dead, and if I was intercepted, I’d deal with it.

  At the top of the beautiful curving wooden staircase, I turned left.

  Eli followed behind me. The carpet was so indulgently thick that our steps made no sound. The house was the sort of posh that seemed to need to announce wealth with art and high-end everything. We’d sought again-walkers often enough that it felt familiar. What was new was how much the dead called. Typically, my magic found them, and I could call them to me. This time, it felt as if I was the one being summoned.

  Using one booted foot, I carefully nudged open the door to the room. My gun was drawn, and my sword was held at my side. Call it paranoid, but the lady of the house had damn near killed me the last time I saw her.

  Inside the room was a massive wooden-four-poster bed, not just a king but embarrassingly large in a way that screamed custom-made and possibly orgy-time. The dead body of Tres Chaddock was in the bed, and at his feet, holding a pistol, was the widow Chaddock.

  “You came!” Alice Chaddock looked so relieved I almost questioned my memories. “I wasn’t sure if you got my messages, and I was so worried and Tres said you saved Jimmy Odem and—"

  “You tried to kill me,” I pointed out, cutting off her verbal vomit.

  “Well, not really.” She pressed her lips into a pout that had exactly no effect on me. Okay, it pissed me off, but I was fairly sure that wasn’t the result she was seeking. “I tried to misfire the second injection. I couldn’t stop Lydia, but I figured you were still alive so. . .” She waved her hands as if a gesture would substitute for filling in the sentences. “And you’re here. It turned out fine!”

  I raised my gun. Fine? Excruciating pain. Angry neighbors. Worried friends. Summoning Beatrice. Accidental engagement. So very not fine.

  She stood and put herself between us and Tres’ body, as if that would stop anyone intent on reaching him. She had a gun, and she held it like she knew how to use it, but I beheaded face-gnawers for a living and had just overcome dying. I was fairly sure a woman who was sobbing wasn’t going to be my demise—although she had come near to killing me once already, so I could be wrong.

  Either way, I couldn’t shoot Alice. I didn’t shoot for vengeance or in anger. She wasn’t an imminent threat. If not for the venom glowing vibrant green all through Tres’ body, I’d be tempted to call the police and leave.

  Well, the venom and the need to be sure the murder of businessmen was at an end. Both Tres and Beatrice had paid me to find answers, and Alice had some of them. Walking out wasn’t going to help.

  Alice Chaddock was a sobbing mess, and from the looks of her reddened, swollen eyes, she’d been crying for a while.

  “It wasn’t me, Geneviève,” she said. “I didn’t want you dead. Lydia was going to call the police about having you take care of Alvin. She wanted him to wake, you know? And I ruined her plan, and she found out and—”

  “She killed your husband?” Eli asked, interrupting her with a calm I didn’t have. “Lydia killed Chaddock?”

  “Lydia Alberti.” Alice nodded. “She wanted to kill her husband. He was going to divorce her and there was a prenup, you know?”

  She leaned down and brushed Tres’ face with the hand not holding the gun. “He looks like his father.” She glanced at us. “You must believe me. I had no other choice. I was trying to do right by Alvin, and things just got out of hand.”

  “I have trust issues with those who try to murder me, Alice,” I said dryly. “Move away from Tres.”

  “I didn’t kill Tres or Alvin!”

  As I stepped forward, Alice threw herself over his corpse. Sobbing and clutching him, she was still somehow holding a gun. I was at the end of my patience.

  I glanced at Eli. He was so much better at delicacy than I was ever going to be. “Help?”

  “Mrs. Chaddock? Alice?” Eli walked over and took the pistol from her hand. She didn’t resist.

  That alone eased my anxiety. Murderess with a gun? It wasn’t a comforting look on anyone. My attempted murderess? That made it emotional in ways I hadn’t expected to confront.

  After Eli had the gun, he glanced at me inquiringly.

  I shrugged.

  “Alice!” I raised my voice. “Get off Tres. You’re embarrassing yourself.”

  “Promise you won’t chop off his head. Swear it!” Alice was wrapped around the dead man like a violently possessive monkey. “I want you to wake him. Like you did with Jimmy Odem. I can’t figure this out on my own. I don’t want Tres and Alvin dead. I need someone to look after me!”

  I rolled my eyes so hard it hurt. “I am not going to ‘chop off his head.’ Move now. I have questions.”

  Alice hopped up and launched herself at me, hugging me. “Thank you!”

  I froze. “The last time you hugged me, you tried to kill me. Let go of me.”

  She jumped back. “Bad idea, huh?”

  “Terrible plan,” I said.

  Eli stared at her, dumbfounded, and I started to laugh. Honestly, I think I’d just lost the trophy for “worst ideas ever.”

  I realized that both Alice and Eli were staring at me, but more importantly, Tres’ dead body called out for resurrection in increasingly loud summons. Did I let him revive? Did I revive him? Putting him in a T-Cell was the expected next step, but we all knew what I could do.

  Nothing about my life had gone according to plan the last month—and the month was only half over.

  I motioned for Alice to leave the room. I had questions, and I couldn’t focus with Tres’ corpse beside me. He was transforming internally, and I could practically hear each shift. He
would be a draugr when he woke, and I’d need to either behead him or subdue him so he could be taken to a T-Cell House.

  Or wake him myself.

  Chapter Twenty-Eight

  Somehow, after we left Tres in the room, Alice had reverted to wifely diligence when we walked out of the room with her dead step-son. We followed her into the hallway and descended to the main floor.

  “Tea? Coffee?” Alice led us to the kitchen. “Tres sent the staff home before he . . .” She shook her head and smiled. “I can make tea or coffee, though.”

  The clip of her steps was even as she marched toward the stainless steel and stone kitchen. She paused and glanced at us. “Both?”

  “Who killed Tres? Who is Lydia?” I asked.

  The polite façade that the widow Chaddock had suddenly evaporated. “Promise not to be mad?”

  Eli and I exchanged a look.

  “Of course,” he murmured quietly.

  I tried not to think ill of people as a rule, but Alice—aside from the whole trying to murder me thing—was pushing so many of my buttons that I had the fleeting urge to pivot and leave. I could get answers later. If not for Tres’ corpse, I may have done just that.

  Alice motioned for us to follow her through a doorway to a closed door across from what looked like a formal living room—not the one where we’d waited previously. This was more elegant, from silk drapes to elegant period reproduction furnishings. A gleaming marble hearth and fireplace dominated the far wall. The rug in the middle of the room was obviously missing. Brighter hardwood in a rectangular area showed that there had been a rug.

  “Where is the rug?”

  “Garage.” She paused and glanced at us. “I’m not a bad person. I was just so angry.”

  She turned the knob and opened the door a crack.

  “She wasn’t thinking clearly,” Alice added. Her hand tightened on the doorknob. “Lydia had killed my Alvin, and then tried to kill you and I needed your help. Then we came home, and she was arguing with Tres.” Alice started to sniffle again. “I warned him, and she shoved me, and Tres fell against the fireplace.”