Owl's Fair (The Owl Star Witch Mysteries Book 2)

by Leanne Leeds

  Our lack of trust in the pixies had dictated that a meeting topped the list. She insisted we take her sleeper Malibu death trap—even though I was pretty sure my Jeep would have been a far more practical choice to hunt pixies. When the tracking stone brought us to the edge of a swamp just north of Forkbridge proper, I resisted the urge to remind her my 4x4 could have driven right into the thing.

  “Ugh, it’s so humid in here.” Emma slapped at a mosquito. A frog croaked in reply. “And if there’s this many frogs, how are there still so many mosquitos?”

  “Just pray we get in and out of here before dusk. There’ll be swarms of the things all over us, and it won’t only be mosquitos.” I took a step but slipped and lost my footing.

  Emma’s arm shot out and grabbed my shoulder. “Whoa, I got you!” She thrust me toward a black-trunked tree for further support. The tracker rock pulsed white, and I put my finger to my lips. “They’re close enough to see us,” I whispered.

  “Um, Astra?” Emma pointed toward the tree.

  I turned and came face-to-face with a snake just inches from my nose. I blinked. He blinked. I blinked. His forked tongue flicked out and tasted the air.

  “Shoo, dude.”

  The snake gave me a bored, disinterested look and slithered up the tree slowly.

  Emma whistled. “Aren’t you afraid of anything?”

  I made a dismissive gesture. “I’ve made a career out of not being scared of things. I mean, I have a healthy fear of the unknown, just enough to make sure I’m cautious and not stupid. But is there anything that can freeze me in fear?” I shrugged. “Not that I’ve come across yet.”

  “Good, because there’s an alligator behind you,” Emma told me calmly.

  “Is he attacking?”

  She shook her head no.

  “Then we’re probably fine. The gator couldn’t bite through my uniform if he tried, anyway.”

  “What’s this ‘we’ thing, Astra?” The detective eyed the area behind me warily. “I’m not wearing the fang-proof Black Widow cosplay magic armor. If he can’t chomp your leg off, he just might come for me.”

  “He won’t, and if he does, I’ll—” I stopped and stared at the rock. It shone bright white, steady. Once the rock stopped pulsing, it could only mean one thing. “The pixies are here.”

  “Where?” Emma whispered back. She glanced up in the trees.

  “Look down. They’re tiny and wingless.”

  “Rude,” a high-pitched voice said faintly from the direction of my feet.

  The smiling pixie looked up at me, his red hair wild as it cascaded over his pointed ears and onto his stout shoulders. He looked like a gym rat troll doll. “My name is Pistachio Waterflash. I am Chieftain of the Forkbridge pixies.” All seven inches of him tried to look tough as he thrust out his bare, muscled chest and tilted his head. “You must be Astra Arden. Ebony said you would be coming.”

  “Oh, my gosh, he’s smaller than a Barbie doll,” Emma said, her eyes wide.

  “A few inches shorter, yes,” he answered, craning his neck. Placing his tiny, barely perceptible hands on his hips, he smiled coyly up at her. “I can assure you, however, I am much more functional than a Ken doll, lovely Emma.” The tone made it sound like his statement was accompanied by wiggling eyebrows, but to tell you the truth, they were so small I couldn’t tell for sure.

  Emma blinked. “How do you know my name?”

  “We have heard tell of—AH!” Pistachio shouted and dove to the ground as a dark form dove from the sky.

  “Archie!”

  Archie barely missed grabbing the tiny pixie with his sharp talons.

  The pixie scrambled under a downed branch and peaked out fearfully. “Are you barmy, man?” he squeaked in indignation. Turning to me, he shrieked, “You brought an owl here?”

  “I am the goddess’s own owl, you nutter! Of course I came with them!” Archie flew down and landed on a dead tree limb. Leaning forward, he clicked his beak at Pistachio. “Why would you walk around seven inches tall in a swamp with predators?”

  “Because it’s our swamp, you arrogant prat!” the pixie shouted back with a distinct southern accent. “Bloody plonker! Get out of our swamp!”

  “Make me, inchworm,” Archie told him ominously.

  Emma looked confused. “Why is he talking like he watches too much BBC?”

  I looked up. “Pixies are from England.” It was an odd thing, to be sure, but all pixies I’d ever met had an impressive repertoire of British insults. It was like they had a pixie playbook with them all listed, passed down from generation to generation.

  Her confusion remained. “But he doesn’t have an accent.”

  “I’m not from our homeland,” Pistachio sniffed. “My family originated from there. We got stuck on a ship several hundred years ago.”

  “Okay, got it.” Emma did not look like she got it.

  “Come on out, shorty, let’s play,” Archie told Pistachio, his feathers ruffling with heightened excitement. “Let’s see who’s faster.” Archie narrowed his eyes. “I bet it’s me.”

  “Archie! Stop that!”

  “You just know he’s the reason Alice is in danger,” Archie warned me, glaring at the pixie again with a threatening posture. “Let’s just eat him now so I can hunt some frogs. We’ll be done with this. Maiden saved, owl fed. I mean, what a night, right?”

  “Oh, bollocks,” Pistachio said under his breath (which meant I could barely, just barely, hear him). Pistachio Waterflash stepped out from under the branch with a final menacing glare at my owl and began to glow.

  “Does everything glow?” Emma muttered.

  Within a few seconds, the pixie was ten inches, then twelve inches, then two feet. Within a minute, Pistachio stood in front of us as tall as any normal-sized man. He still looked otherworldly with his shock of long, bright orange hair and shirtless chest thrust out proudly. “Perhaps this is better?” He smiled widely. “Ladies. Welcome to my bog.”

  “Oh my goodness,” Emma breathed. She sniffed the air, looked at Pistachio, then stepped closer and sniffed again. “You smell like the woods after a summer rain.” She blinked. “Is that a cologne?”

  I tried not to laugh. Emma looked thunderstruck.

  Pistachio smiled at her and stretched his muscles like a sunbathing cat waking up from a nap. “It is not, fair Emma.” Now deep and smolderingly sexy, his voice seemed to cast an even more penetrating spell on Emma, and she gulped loudly. “This is the natural scent of the pixie. We are of nature, and so the scent of nature clings to us like—”

  “Oh, for goodness sake, stop talking like you’re the star of a Shakespearean play, would you?” Archie snorted as he flew toward Pistachio and whacked him in the head with his wing. “No one’s impressed by you, you walking Ken doll.”

  “Would you like to see how much I am not like a Ken doll?” Pistachio retorted, reaching to untie the drawstring of his bright red shorts.

  “Okay, gentlemen, can we stop with the—” I stopped myself, looked at the two, and gave up on classifying whatever was going on between them. The only words I could think of wouldn’t be polite to say in mixed company and, to be frank, with Pistachio now at this size? He would absolutely win any measuring contest. “Whatever this is, let’s just stop it. Pistachio, we’re here to find out if the pixies have marked Alice Windrow for death.” I crossed my arms. “Have they? Have you?”

  He blinked, a shocked look on his face. “Why would we mark her for death? She honors us.”

  “How so?” Emma asked, her eyes drifting toward Pistachio’s chiseled chest. “How does a human honor a pixie man—um, a pixie?”

  “She brings us gooseberries shipped from England,” he answered, a dreamy look sliding across his face. “I don’t know how she manages it, but their tart, juicy flavor…” Pistachio’s look of ecstasy was nearly obscene.

  I cleared my throat. No response. “Um. Pistachio?”

  With a sigh, his face cleared, and he looked slightly more present. “
We would never do anything to hurt that wonderful, benevolent woman. I assure you, goddess-hand.”

  He looked at me with enough admiration to make me blush. “What did you call me?”

  “Goddess-hand,” Pistachio answered, smiling. “Years ago, we would have called you handmaiden, but since that Hulu show?” He tsk-tsked and looked sadly at both Emma and me—as if extending sympathy for our state of being female. “Entirely different connotation now, isn’t it?” The pixie tossed his red hair over his shoulder, quite Fabio-like, and glared at Archie. “Shame the bright-eyed one couldn’t get you better help.”

  “Hey, who you callin’ the help, bub?” the owl thundered.

  “If Alice is a follower,” Emma asked quickly to head off another explosion between the bird and the chieftain, “why are you all not protecting her? Since she follows the pixie path, don’t you owe her some level of safeguarding?”

  “We could give her asylum here in the swamp,” Pistachio answered with a nod, “but this is the only place we have ultimate control. Most humans are not particularly enthusiastic about living in a swamp teeming with alligators and mosquitos and snakes and frogs.” Pistachio Waterflash stepped to stand in front of Emma and gazed down at her, his eyes shining with mischief. He grinned as he caught sight of her delicate blush. “Even if we would have the ultimate control to give them joy and safety beyond measure.” Pistachio reached forward and grazed her arm with the tips of his fingers.

  I did my best not to snicker.

  Archie?

  Archie did not.

  The owl exploded with laughter. “Whoah, boy. Does that actually work? ‘Hey, baby, come visit me at my dank, stinky, muddy swamp so I can control you with my extra big ears. They’re so big I pick up streaming services!’ What a crock!” The owl laughed even harder as the pixie whirled to face him, an angry look darkening his usually joyous expression. “You’re a hoot, Pistachio. A real hoot!”

  “Get out!” the pixie chieftain roared. “I will not be insulted in my own realm!”

  I scrambled forward and reached toward him. “I’m really sorry—”

  He whirled on me before I could bow or scrape. “You as well. I have answered your questions. I have no quarrel with you, but your flea-bitten bird has no sense of respect. You brought him here. Now you and he must go. Get him far from my sight before he’s eaten by an alligator.”

  All around us, water splashed. I glanced to find several alligators floating closer and closer and closer. More eyes broke the water’s surface like submarines setting up for an attack.

  “We’ll go.” He nodded, looking satisfied. “And I’m sorry that Archie disrespected you, Chieftain. Truly I am. Thank you for answering our questions.”

  He considered me and then nodded, accepting my apology as sincere. Turning toward Emma, Pistachio smiled once again, all sexy-like. “You may stay, fair Emma.” He leaned forward and placed his face close to her hair, and breathed deeply. “Your scent, like honey, is quite pleasing to me.”

  Oh, dear lord.

  Emma looked up at him and blinked once, then twice. It was as if the hardened detective was trying to process the absurd unreality of the situation.

  I couldn’t help but notice Pistachio stood between Emma and the path out of the swamp. Not…blocking her. Not stopping her. Just subtly clarifying he didn’t want her to go.

  “Hey, enough with—” Archie began, but the big-mouthed bird soon found my thumb and forefinger pinching his deadly rabbit-killing beak closed. I was lucky I didn’t lose a finger.

  “Be quiet,” I whispered. “Not everything needs running commentary from you.”

  The owl stared at me, his eyes angry. But he didn’t struggle.

  “I wanted to stay,” Emma told me as she drove exceedingly, frustratingly slow toward town. “That was just bizarre. Like, I wanted to stay. I wanted to blow off my job, pack up my apartment, and just stay in the swamp with him.”

  “Um-hmm,” I answered noncommittally.

  “Would a pixie lie?” she asked.

  “About Alice being marked for death? No, I don’t think so. He has no reason to, really—Pistachio is a Chieftain, after all. He’s pixie royalty. He wouldn’t have any reason to think we’d be able to stop him, much less that we would put in the effort.”

  “Right, no, yeah, about Alice. That’s good.”

  I stared at her. “Were you not asking about Alice?”

  Emma blushed hotly. “No, I was.”

  “You were not! You want to know if Pistachio was sincere in his completely over-the-top flirtation.”

  “Was he flirting?” Emma asked distractedly. “I just figured he was being friendly. You know, hospitable. Maybe trying to get a new human worshiper or something.” She ran her hand through her damp hair.

  “Pixies are not smoldering sexpots, Emma. They do things for people, but they’re not some tiny, seven-inch tall sex cult or something. They like gifts, they like to give gifts, and they like people to be happy. They’re more likely to find you a boyfriend than flirt with you,” I told her.

  “So that was—”

  “You were hit on by the pixie chieftain.”

  “No, that can’t be right.”

  “You were there. What would you call it?” I asked her as casually as I could

  “Overwhelming,” she breathed. “I think I heard bells. I’ve never felt that kind of pull toward anyone before. It was…otherworldly.”

  “You wouldn’t be the first or the last human to be attracted to a paranormal,” I told her as we turned down my street. “I’ve heard it can be overwhelming, and those relationships can work. If it didn’t, there wouldn’t be so many psychic humans running around. But one thing you do have to keep in mind.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He’s a chieftain.” Nothing in Emma’s face demonstrated this news changed her way of thinking one way or the other. “Their leader?” Still nothing. “The chieftain dating a human won’t be popular, Emma. The wife of the chieftain is an honored position—”

  “Wait a minute, wait a minute, wait. Wife?” Emma’s wide eyes shot toward me, looking crazed. “Slow down there, speedy. I’m not marrying a freaking pixie. For one, when I dreamed about the places I would live as an adult, swamp never came up anywhere on the list. Two?” Emma took a deep breath. Then she exhaled loudly. “Look, forget the list. You’re just jumping way, way ahead of the curve here, my friend.”

  “I just think people should be fully informed before they careen off a cliff, you know? No judgment here. Just saying.” I turned and looked out the window. The slow crawl of the car was only one of the outward indications that meeting Pistachio had rattled Emma. I’d never seen her like this.

  “I’m not careening off a cliff.”

  “Not at this speed, no. Old lady Smith just passed us on her late afternoon walk, and I think she’s at least ninety.”

  The Malibu crept slowly into the driveway, and Emma put it in park. “Look, either way, we don’t think the pixies are after Alice, so that means it’s plain old human murder.”

  I nodded. “I think so.”

  “Well, since greed is usually a highly motivating factor in most evil human endeavors, I say we start focusing on Paul Wakefield, pronto. Let’s just not think about Pistachio Waterflash and his pectoral muscles for a while.” Emma looked at me. “Deal?”

  “Deal.” I raised my eyebrow. “But I didn’t say anything about the pixie’s pecs.”

  “Shut up, Astra.”

  Chapter Seven

  “What was that back there?”

  Archie stared. He looked innocent and sweet. Even charming. But the murderous raptor wasn’t fooling me. “What was what?” He blinked.

  “Dude.”

  “My lady.” The owl bowed regally.

  I’d finally found the cantankerous owl in the far right corner of the backyard sitting (hiding) in Ayla’s old treehouse. While Emma toiled away in the main house looking for information on Paul Wakefield and my sisters worke
d with Aunt Gwennie to prepare dinner, it seemed a perfect time to ask the bird why he was such a jerk.

  “You swooped down on the pixie chieftain. A chieftain, mind you, we had found to ask for his help.” I told him. He stared back like I was talking about someone else. “Do you have any idea the kind of problems we’d have if you ate a chieftain? What the heck were you thinking?”

  “First, I wasn’t going to eat the pistachio; I just wanted to crack his shell a little bit.” Archie ruffled out his feathers inside the small makeshift window. “The pixie path,” he scoffed. “You realize there is no pixie path, right?”

  “What does it matter? Alice feels there is, and who are you to judge, anyway? That’s a reason to grab a pixie in your talons?”

  “Pixies have no serious magic other than pooping out pixie dust. They’re not gods. This pixie path is just something they made up to get humans to bring them things. Has to be. The whole thing is manipulation, I tell you. Like a cult.” The owl put one wing on his hip and pointed the other wing out the window. “Pistachio Waterflash is nothing more than a con man.”

  While Archie was exaggerating about the pixies being essentially useless, he wasn’t entirely wrong regarding their magical capabilities. Pixies had limited magical power—they could make areas safe sanctuary for themselves. Any animals that lived within that area would respect their rule or leave, but that was more politeness than anything else. They could make—not poop—pixie dust (which, despite the modern myths of Peter Pan, doesn’t make you fly—it shrinks you down to pixie size).

  The owl looked aggravated that I was unmoved by his passionate statements. “So what? We didn’t go there for that. We went there for his help.” No response. “Archie, why do you care? They’re not hurting anybody.”

  “That you know of.” Archie frowned, then clicked his beak. “Elemental con men.” The agitated owl paced in the window.

  His reaction to them was baffling, but this wasn’t the first time the owl’s dislike of a species or creature baffled me. First the parrots in Parrot Paradise, and now the pixies. I wasn’t sure if his dislike of the pixies was based on some reality I didn’t yet know about, or I was simply discovering my owl had a prejudice problem.