by Leanne Leeds
Rex stepped around and faced me. “Meryl Hawkins was not asleep. It’s the middle of the night. If he’s telling the truth, and she’s dusted, she should be asleep. If what he says is true, in any case.”
I was having a heck of a time figuring out what was true and what wasn’t.
I stood in the alligator-infested swamp facing an arrogant, misogynistic pixie. The powerful vampire at my side stared at me expectantly, his eyes dark with worry.
“How do you ‘dust’ your followers?” I asked, cringing a little at the question.
“They drink the sun elixir in the initiation ceremony,” Pistachio responded. “The sun well water mixed with pixie dust. I add a little raspberry, strawberry, and mint, too, for flavor.” He smiled, looking pleased with himself. “It’s quite good.”
“So they have to ingest it.”
The pixie nodded.
“Is there some kind of magic spell you use to make the elixir control women?” I asked, remembering the rebel pixies’ claim that Pistachio “somehow found a way” to create a concoction that gave him control over human women.
The pixie’s face looked as confused as I felt. “No. This is our ancient pixie drink. Pixie dust and moon or sun water. We’ve been drinking it for hundreds of years.” Pistachio looked back and forth between Rex and me. “I just shared a sip with the humans that wanted to walk the pixie path. Why?”
Chapter Sixteen
“So, I’m starting to feel like this civil war—wait, can we call it a civil war if there are only six pixies? Anyway, it seems to be a much bigger part of whatever is going on here than I first thought,” I told Rex. “Everybody’s story is just a little bit off.”
After a brief glance at the pixie chieftain, Rex looked at me with that same intense but distant expression. “What do you mean?”
Instead of answering, I turned to Pistachio. “Earlier tonight, Ebony and Amethyst waylaid me with four other pixies. They took me to the moon pool and told me you had dusted four women to control them.” I stared. “Is that true?”
Pistachio looked first angry, then guarded. “I’m not going around searching out women to feed pixie water to, no. Alice sought us out. She came to me. You understand?” The pixie’s tone was forceful, and he sounded frustrated—like he’d made this argument before. “She came into the swamp over and over again. For six months, maybe even a year, she kept visiting. I didn’t go looking for her.”
“Why? For what purpose?”
Suddenly, the pixie adopted a patronizing air. The switch in his attitude was so jarring, my head pulled back just a little in surprise. “Doing rituals to honor the pixies. Leaving us gifts.” Pistachio shrugged. “She came so often, and with such dedication, I felt she earned a sip of the elixir. She wanted to follow a pixie path, but there was no pixie path.” The pixie drew himself up to full height. “So, as is my right as chieftain, I created one. Though why I am explaining my choice to you, I have no idea.”
Uh-huh.
My eyes narrowed.
“Did Ebony and Amethyst agree with your ‘right’ and your creation?” I asked him, glancing at Rex to see if his face held any outward indication that Pistachio was lying to us. As usual, it was a mask. “Did they have any problem with this new direction you went in as a leader?”
“I didn’t ask them,” he responded haughtily. “I am chieftain. They are not. I lead; they follow. That’s how a pixie clan works. Why would I ask my subordinates for permission or input on what I, as a leader, already chose to do?”
“Wow. Yeah, okay. I’m sure the hostility in your voice didn’t play a role in their discomfort at all.” I rolled my eyes and did my best to stop openly scoffing at his offensive arrogance. I needed to keep him talking. “What about Emma? Why is Emma acting like she’s dusted?”
“I have no idea. She hasn’t come to this place for a year, leaving me gifts and flattering me,” he responded with a dispassionate toss of his wild hair. “Though I wouldn’t be averse to it if she was.” He smiled with all the smugness I’d grown to expect from him. “The detective is quite a sexy little—”
“That is my sister you’re speaking of.” Rex’s voice cracked like a whip. “Pixie blood is not my preferred libation of choice, but if you continue speaking of my sister in that manner? I will make an exception.”
“Oh, just get out of my swamp, vamp!” The pixie rolled his eyes. “This is an ambush, and it circumvents my authority over the swamp.” Fury flashed in his eyes. “Why do either of you care how many people I’ve given sips of pixie potion to? How is it the business of a witch and a vampire what I do?”
“Four people,” I insisted again.
“One person!” he responded, incensed. “One person. Can you not count? One person. I gave Alice and Alice alone a sip of the pixie potion. What is the big deal about the stupid pixie potion, anyway? All it does is enable them to move through the swamp as someone who belongs here and make them a little more predisposed to adore the leader of the pixies. That’s it. It’s not dangerous.”
“A little more predisposed?” I asked in a huff. “ I have two women back at my house cooing over you like you’re a member of the Beatles! At least they were until they both fell asleep.”
“Beetles?” Waterflash blinked. “Are humans attracted to bugs?”
“Could you focus, please?”
Pistachio looked at me with an unspoken accusation, his face twisted in a wave of pained anger I just couldn’t place. Then just as quickly, it disappeared.
There was something else going on here. I was sure of it.
And I was sure Pistachio Waterflash knew precisely what it was.
“Perhaps they just really like me,” he said. “I am very likable.”
Sure. You’re all charm and good graces, bub.
I tried again.
“The owner of a multi-state grocery chain and a detective are acting like some nitwit high school girls with a crush on the quarterback. They don’t just ‘like’ you. For one, you’re not nearly as likable as you think you are. Two, their behavior seems out of control.” Pistachio’s arrogance broke into worry. “It’s totally different from their normal personalities. You’re the pixie, you tell me. How would that happen?”
The pixie looked at me, raising one eyebrow. “If the two women in your house are cooing over me, and you are sure they have been ‘dusted,’ it might mean they have taken too much of it. Much like alcohol, the pixie potion has standard—and safe—effects. But if a human takes too much of it? The effects come on too hard and too fast. It will wear off by morning. Or in a week.” He tilted his head. “Maybe two.”
“And who has access to this elixir?” Rex asked. “Who can make it?”
“Anybody,” Pistachio said. “Well, any pixie. Pixie dust is kept on our two sacred well islands, and the alligators would ensure none but pixies and pixie guests went there. But it’s a simple thing, like human Kool-Aid. You take some water, you put some pixie powder in it, you grab a spoon. Stir. Done. As I mentioned, I steeped mine in strawberry and—”
An image flashed in my mind.
“What color is it?” I asked, remembering the unlabeled plastic bottles filled with bright pink liquid on Emma’s desk. “After you mix it together, what does it look like?”
“A sparkly pink, of course,” Pistachio answered, looking insulted. “What other color could it possibly be? We’re pixies.”
I turned toward Rex. “When I came in for the newspaper interview this morning, Emma had a bunch of unlabeled bottles on her desk. Like, sports drink bottles? I think there were six of them,” I said, trying to remember. “I don’t know where she got them. I know they weren’t from the vending machine at the police station.” I raised an eyebrow. “What if this isn’t Pistachio Waterflash’s fault? What if it’s been Meryl Hawkins all along?”
“Hawkins?” Pistachio made a face like he’d bit into something sour. “That woman is the most insufferable—”
“How do you know her?” Rex asked, cutti
ng Pistachio off before he could get rolling. The vampire’s eyes quickly scanned the sky, marking the time, and then turned his attention back to the pixie. “Did she attempt to join the pixie cult?”
“It’s not a cult,” the pixie’s fury flared. “It’s one woman that likes me. I know someone like you couldn’t understand—being a sexy vampire that can look at a woman sideways and flare attraction in her by blinking—but I resent your tone.” Pistachio turned, his eyes clouded with concern. “I would never want to be the cause of any harm to Alice.”
The pixie…seemed to blink back…tears.
I stared at him.
Yeah, those were tears.
Wait.
What?
Rex looked at me. I looked at him. We both looked back at the pixie chieftain. His arrogance struggled to hide the emotion he’d shown, to shield him from our intense stares…and failed. The tiny pieces snapped into the puzzle as Pistachio’s defenses fell away.
“You’re in love with her,” I said quietly, gently, and without judgment.
He looked down and blinked away pink pixie tears. “Leave me be.”
“It’s true, isn’t it? That’s it. You’re in love with Alice Windrow.”
And that is how we got the story—the true story— of the pixie “civil war.”
“I didn’t intend to fall in love with a human,” Pistachio began, gesturing towards three large, flat rocks. Rex and I seated ourselves and waited for the pixie to settle in and continue the story. “She was so lovely and so very…wounded.” He leaned back and glanced out into the swamp. “She would come here several times a week, deep within the swamp, and meditate. At least once a week, she would speak out loud to the marsh as if it were alive and unload her burdens.”
“About her parents?” I asked.
“About her parents, about the company she owned but didn’t know what to do with. About her loneliness…she could no longer trust people because everyone seemed to want something. Alice was overwhelmed. And alone. So very alone.” He smiled briefly, gently. “I think it’s why she was drawn to the paranormal. The everyday reality wasn’t giving her answers; it wasn’t bringing her joy. Just crushing responsibility and black emptiness. I listened. For months, I listened.” He swallowed. “Eventually, I appeared…to her.”
“Does your kind have any rules about appearing to humans?” Rex asked.
Pistachio nodded. “Our clan avoids humans. My parents, the previous chieftains, felt it was better that way. We are small, can’t easily change what we look like. And even when human-sized, we stand out. By our nature, we have flair,” he told us breathlessly, holding his hands up and posing.
“I’d agree with you there,” Rex told him.
His face fell, arms by his sides again. “I couldn’t let her come to this place week after week and pour her heart out, hoping someone would hear, and let her leave thinking no one had. That she was still alone. I had to tell her that I heard her.” He smiled. “That she was not alone.”
“So you came up with the pixie path religion thing.”
Pistachio nodded. “It was a way to give her some joy. And to stay near her. I did feel that it benefited my clan. Times have changed, and there are few wilds left humans do not encroach on. It was a compromise.” He looked down. “It was also selfish. I couldn’t stay away from her.”
My eyes narrowed. “And the elixir to control her? Why did you do that?”
The pixie looked down, his face miserable.
“Pistachio?”
His brightly colored hair fell in front of his face, and he silently shook his head.
“She’s in love with him as well,” Rex told me quietly. “He knows they can never be together. He has to lead his clan, and they would never accept her as his mate. Pistachio felt guilty about starting something that led to even more pain for her, so he gave her the elixir to…turn her feelings. Instead of romantic love, she simply worships him like a god.”
“There is an enforced distance to worship,” Waterflash explained. “It was the only thing I had in my power to do besides abandoning her. And I couldn’t do that. But I could protect her from the pain of being in love with someone she could never be with.”
“And what about you?” I asked quietly. “What about your pain?”
The pixie shrugged. “It’s of no consequence. It’s also my own fault.” He smiled sadly. “I knew the rules of my clan. I broke them. In doing so, I broke many things as well. Alice’s ability to have a relationship with someone else. My own betrothal to Amethyst—”
Wait.
What?
“Wait a minute, wait a minute,” I held my hands up in front of me. “You and Amethyst were going to get married?” Pistachio nodded. “So that means she was going to be a chieftain.” He nodded again. “You broke off the engagement because you are in love with Alice? And told her exactly that?”
“Of course. I can’t marry somebody when I am in love with another. That would be wrong. I owed her the truth.” His eyes widened. “It’s offensive to even suggest otherwise. I am surprised at you, witch, that you would even ask the question.” He sniffed, looked insulted.
So, the pixies could drug people, block their natural emotions, lie—but marrying someone when in love with someone else?
That was an ethical bridge too far.
I sighed.
Pixies.
“How did she take it?”
“Not well,” Pistachio admitted. “Amethyst believes her destiny as chieftain was not an accident of birth, but ratification of life’s intended hierarchies. Pixies can be a bit snobbish. Especially toward humans.”
Life’s intended hierarchies?
That struck me as more than a “bit” snobbish.
“So not only did he spurn Amethyst—”
Pistachio interrupted Rex. “I wouldn’t say spurned.”
Rex looked at him sharply. “What would she say?”
The pixie didn’t have an answer.
“As I was saying, he spurned Amethyst, robbed her of her leadership position when he refused and rejected her,” Rex murmured. “It seems the list of suspects who would like to get revenge on Alice Windrow has just shortened. Considerably.”
“Do you know anything about the Punktex grocery store being built in pixie territory?” I asked Pistachio.
He nodded. “I gave Alice permission to build the store on our land so she and I could have someplace to meet away from prying eyes. A couple of months ago, Amethyst came upon the two of us talking, and she was enraged. I needed somewhere safe where our meeting wouldn’t cause pain.” His eyes clouded with pain. But then they suddenly brightened. “We also absolutely adore chocolate. It’s always risky for us to try and run into town to buy it, so Alice has been bringing it—but by the time she gets into the swamp, it’s half-melted.”
“The offerings Alice brings you?”
Pistachio nodded. “Chocolate, for the clan.” Then he shuddered. “That chocolate is the only reason I haven’t been removed as chieftain. Amethyst wanted me dethroned for consorting with the human. So long as the chocolate comes in, though, I remain chieftain.” He held up his hands. “The grocery store on our land accomplished two things I needed to be accomplished.”
If you knew pixies, what Pistachio Waterflash said makes perfect sense. Pixies don’t like leaving their territory. They are addicted to chocolate the way a little kid is addicted to getting dirty. If pixies ate only chocolate all day, every day for the rest of their lives, they would die happy.
There’s one thing pixies like more than chocolate, though.
Revenge.
Pistachio provided us with excellent reasons to sabotage a building site.
If you were Amethyst Cloudspirit, anyway.
I looked at Rex. “He’s telling the truth?”
“He is.” My vampire lie detector nodded.
“So, we’ve uncovered what’s going on with the pixies, then,” I said, stretching my arms. “But we haven’t figured out how Meryl
Hawkins fits into this.” I raised my eyebrow. “Those pink drinks on Emma’s desk, those had to be from Meryl Hawkins. A pixie slipping into the police department would definitely be noticed. But no one said a thing.”
“Who else can make the pixie drinks again?” Rex asked.
“Anyone.” He shrugged. “Like I said, we’ve been drinking them for years.”
With me back in the vampire’s arms, we left Pistachio Waterflash contemplating his actions and how they put everything he loved at risk. Rex clutched me close as we headed toward the moon pool. I’d worry about the alligators when we got there.
Meanwhile, my mind raced in so many directions.
Different paranormals despising other sentient beings.
Bigotry.
Intolerance.
Thousands of years, and we still hadn’t stopped it.
This entire situation unfolding because a man and a woman…fell in love?
Well, that wasn’t entirely true.
Their ill-fated romantic feelings (thanks to bigotry) might be the catalyst for this whole situation. Still, Pistachio Waterflash wasn’t the one running around drugging women—despite the rebel pixies assertions.
If he had any faults—besides being super annoying—it was that he couldn’t see past his own power and leadership to find the solution that was staring him right in the face.
Step down, dude. Just step down as chieftain, and go make a life with the woman you love. How hard is that?
“This way?” Rex asked, interrupting my internal rant.
I scanned the blackness. “How would I know? I can’t see anything anymore.”
The vampire grunted and continued moving east.
Before we’d left in search of the moon pool and the rebel pixies, Pistachio had shared one more tidbit of information.
Meryl Hawkins showed up in the swamp about six months ago with a folder full of notes on pixie magic. She wanted to do an exposé on the paranormals that lived among the humans in Central Florida, and Pistachio had all but run her out of the swamp on a rail.