The Fairyland Murders

by J. A. Kazimer

  “No.” She smacked me in the back. “You promised to protect me.”

  “So?”

  “So protect me, damn it.”

  Standing there arguing wasn’t going to save either of us. “Fine.” I pulled on my gloves, grabbed her hand, and together we started to run for the safety of Troll Town.

  We didn’t make it very far.

  Not that I’d expected we would.

  In a flash an obsidian wall sprouted in front of us, blocking our exit. “Where are you going, Little Boy Blue?” the wall of Shadows called. “We’re not done with you yet.” The wall divided into seven figures, each armed with a thick, wavy kris sword. The metal gleamed in the full moonlight.

  I swallowed, fingering the trigger of my really big gun, tucked in my waistband. “Come on, guys.” I grinned. “Is this about last night?” I wasn’t sure if these were the same phantoms from the bar, the ones who’d jumped me and subsequently learned a lesson about blue-haired guys.

  The lead Shadow—or at least I assumed he was the boss since he stood in the front of the pack—jabbed his sword in my direction. I stayed planted right where I was.

  Don’t get me wrong, I wasn’t being macho; rather, Izzy and I were trapped between the steel-and-concrete bridge and seven unhappy specters.

  Without waiting for an answer, I pulled my really big gun from my waistband, flicked off the safety, and fired, hitting the boss in the center of his quivering torso. He let out a scream and then vanished in a puff of hazy smoke.

  Make that six really unhappy blood-splattered specters.

  The second-in-command ignored my weapon, taking a threatening step toward me. His not-so-minty-fresh breath felt hot on my face. “You have something we want. Give it to us and you won’t get hurt.”

  “You have the wrong blue guy.”

  “We don’t make mistakes.”

  Hard to argue with that sort of logic, but I gave it the good old GED try. “Let’s say, for the sake of argument, that I am in fact the right investigative genius you’re looking for. What exactly do I have that you want?”

  “Don’t play games. Give it to us or else.” He waved his sword at the fairy next to me. I glanced at Izzy, expecting tears and fear. Instead, her expression burned with rage.

  Uh-oh.

  “Izzy . . .” I warned, much too late.

  “It? It!” Her face crinkled with anger. “You better not be referring to me. I’m not an object. I have a name, damn it,” she said before exploding into full fairy mode.

  “Take it easy. . . .” I began, but I was too late to stop what was about to happen. Izzy’s wings flapped at a hundred miles a minute, sucking in the air around us like a vortex.

  “Izz—” I dropped my gun and grabbed my throat as my lungs contorted, struggling for oxygen. Thankfully, the Shadows were experiencing the same problem. The second-in-command fell to his knees, gurgling.

  Wings flapped harder.

  A small tornado encircled us.

  “Stop . . .” I gasped, falling to my own knees.

  As quickly as the fluttering started her wings stilled, but the next Tooth Fairy in line was far from finished. She sucked in a large breath, her cheeks puffing out like a balloon.

  The Shadows and I took the opportunity to suck in our own oxygen as well. Deep, slurping gasps of it. My red blood cells, starved of oxygen, sizzled to life. My brain began to function again, albeit slowly.

  When my head finally stopped spinning I staggered to my feet, sadly in time to take a full-on blast of fairy dust to the face thrown accidentally by the very angry half fairy trying to save our lives. “Ahhhh,” I yelped, rubbing my burning retinas. But I was too late; the fairy dust entered my bloodstream like a tsunami.

  One minute I was on my feet, ready to fight for truth, justice, and Izzy’s virtue, and the next I was on my back, watching pretty colors trail off her pink wings. Flickers danced off her in the moonlight, swirls of red and sparks of silver. “Pretty,” I said, reaching out to touch the beautiful swirls.

  “Oh God,” she said. “Blue . . . can you hear me?”

  My fingers brushed a particularly lovely whirl of softness and light. Wings, I thought, and for half a second sanity returned. “Run, Izzy. Run,” I yelled, but the dust was on me once again. Her small face melded into Clayton’s and then Peyton’s evil little visage.

  Blackness filled my vision.

  “Get up.” She tugged on my arm. “We have to—”

  Those were the last words I could comprehend. The next few minutes blurred into swirling lights, grunts, and girlish screams. I reached out, digging my fingers into something black and gooey. Electrical currents sparked from my fingertips.

  “Ouch!” my hostage yelped and tried to pull free.

  I held tighter. Something hard knocked me in the jaw. I saw tiny blue-haired Blues. I grabbed for my hostage again, finding nothing but air. I wouldn’t let Izzy down, I promised my rapidly disintegrating sanity. I’d vowed to save her and save her I would.

  She cried out.

  My stomach clenched as I staggered to my feet, blinded by the fairy dust. The ground smelled rusty, like freshly shed blood and body parts.

  “Izzy?” I yelled from my foggy, dreamlike state. The pretty pink and red colors twisted into darkness. Goose bumps prickled my skin. “Izzy?” I screamed again and again until my voice turned hoarse. Nothing but silence greeted me.

  The battle was over.

  And the half fairy was gone.

  CHAPTER 20

  Hours later I awoke as the sun rose over the city, casting it in a glow of pink and gold. Morning dew soaked my T-shirt and jeans as a stark coldness settled into my bones, a coldness that had nothing to do with the weather. “Isabella,” I whispered through ragged vocal cords. My head felt eight sizes too large as I slowly staggering to my feet. The ground beneath me was stained black with shadowy parts.

  I shivered, dreading what else I might find. Was Izzy lying somewhere nearby injured or dead? Taking a deep breath, I scanned the carnage until my gaze fell on a blood-soaked bit of wing peeking out from under a bush. I ran to it, my heart slamming wildly in my chest.

  Slowly I knelt down, dreading what I would find. Last night Izzy had saved my life for a second time. I hoped it hadn’t cost her her own. Closing my eyes, I sent a quick prayer to every saint I could remember from my days at the Catholic orphanage as I carefully lifted the bush. Much to my surprise and relief Izzy wasn’t underneath; only a few feathers from one of her wings. So where the hell was she?

  For the next hour I searched Troll Town, questioning every ugly trollish figure I passed. No one had seen Izzy after what they described as the apocalypse had started. Damn drama trolls.

  As I was about to call it quits, I caught sight of a fairy wing disappearing behind a dilapidated shack. “Izzy,” I yelled, running for the winged fairy.

  As I rounded the corner I pulled to a stop, nearly mowing down the two-foot-tall fairy in front of me. Henrick. His purple wings beat at a steady pace. I grabbed one of his wings in my gloved hands, yanking him upward.

  He squealed like a little piggy left without roast beef. “Let me go.”

  “Where is she?” I shook him, holding my breath as a puff of fairy dust exploded in the air. Last thing I needed was another hit of the vile drug. I shook him again for good measure. More dust filled the air around us. Thankfully, a steady breeze carried it away.

  Henrick let out a cry and tried to kick me in the shin. I grinned. I had to give it to the little bugger; even after going a few rounds with the Shadows, he was still as full of anger as ever. Not that he’d gotten off unscathed. In fact, both of his eyes had been blackened and a drip of dried blood ran from his nostril. Better, his two front teeth were missing.

  I repeated my question with another jerk of his wings. “Where is Izzy?”

  “I don’t know,” he screeched. “I never saw her after you threw me to the Shadows.”

  I tried to hide a smile. “My bad.”

&nbs
p; “It will be.” He fluttered his free wing with all his might. More fairy dust flew in all directions. I dropped him, leaping back to avoid the toxic cloud. I waved a hand in front of my face to clear the air, but by the time I regained my senses, Henrick was gone. He’d bested me this time, but he wouldn’t be so lucky next time.

  I hoped.

  After my run-in with Henrick I went back to the search for Izzy, but in the end it proved fruitless. She was gone. No sign of her anywhere. With a heavy heart, I staggered home, hoping Izzy had somehow found her way back to my apartment.

  When I opened my front door the only sound greeting me was the whisper of the wind through my bedsheet curtains. Izzy had left the window open after she’d escaped my apartment. The thought brought a brief smile to my lips. She was tougher than she looked, I reminded myself. A fairy capable of leaping tall buildings in a single bound. Or, at the very least, stealing the teeth of small children and leaving a mere pittance in return.

  She would be all right.

  She had to be.

  I headed for the shower after checking my empty answering machine, both home and office, and downing a handful of aspirin. I needed a clear head. Izzy’s fairy dust had left me feeling as if I were swimming in a pool of taffy. I was lucky to be alive after taking a faceful of the stuff. Could I say the same for her? Was she even now suffering at the hands of the Shadows? Or had she escaped?

  Turning the cold water to full blast, I stepped under the spray, shrieked once, and quickly scrubbed off the blackness staining my hands. Five minutes later, fully dressed in a semiclean pair of jeans and a T-shirt, I poured a cup of instant coffee into an old soup can, tossed on my leather jacket and gloves, and headed down to the street below.

  I would find Izzy. Again. Even if it killed me.

  Thirty minutes later it almost did exactly that.

  CHAPTER 21

  “Oh, please don’t be dead. I can’t afford another write-up,” a voice said from above me. A shining light burned my retinas. I shoved the offending brightness away, wincing as my body began to throb in places I hadn’t known could throb, let alone had nerve endings.

  I lifted my head, noting that I was currently lying on hard concrete, the smell of fairy dust and dentin all around me. Teeth, in an array of sizes and colors, covered me.

  “What the hell happened?” I asked. My voice sounded harsh, as if I’d gone ten rounds with the butcher, the baker, and the candlestick maker. I’d just arrived at Fairy Central on my quest for Izzy and now I was sprawled on the ground swathed in stolen teeth.

  The orange-winged guy above me, a fairy wearing a hard hat and work boots, flinched. “There was a minor accident.”

  “An accident?”

  “A small one. Tiny, really.”

  “Uh-huh,” I said, staggering to my feet. “So why do I feel as if I was crushed under a bus?” Every bone in my body ached, from my littlest piggy to the tips of my blue do.

  “Molars,” he said. “Not a bus.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He winced. “I’m sorry, okay? I didn’t see you. And really, now that I think about it, it’s your own fault. You must wear a hard hat at all times in this area. Didn’t you read the sign?”

  “See me?” I glanced to the left and then the right. Fairies in an array of colored hard hats ran about like busy beavers. Teeth sat in piles for as far as the eye could see. Forklifts poured more and more on top of the piles. The fairies were either gearing up for a long winter or something a lot worse. Since winter was still a good five months off, I had a bad feeling, almost as bad as the ringing in my head.

  Since the fairies relied on the Tooth Fairy to provide them with enough dentin for all of Fairyland, an excess stockpile of teeth meant one thing. Someone was actively collecting teeth.

  Maybe Clayton and Peyton weren’t right about Izzy. Maybe she wasn’t a Tooth Fairy-in-waiting. And if not, just who was she and why did someone want her dead? It was almost too much to consider at the moment.

  The fairy who’d run me down grabbed my arm as I started to sway. The resulting zap served him right. He yelped, releasing me quickly as he blew on his fingers. “Ow! What the hell was that?”

  “Just deserts,” I said, brushing off layers of dentin dust. I waved a hand at the long line of piled-up teeth. “What’s going on here?”

  “What’s it to you?” he asked, his eyes rounding with suspicion. “Just who are you anyway? The warehouse is off-limits to nonfairies.”

  I held out my hand, a tight smile on my face. “Name’s Blue. Blue Reynolds. And you are?”

  As expected, the less-than-brilliant fairy grabbed my hand. A buzzing echoed through the warehouse as he suffered through another fifty-thousand-volt zap. He jerked back and then tripped over his feet, winding up sprawled next to a pile of teeth. When he finally regained his wits he glared up at me. “I’m Doyle.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Doyle.” I held out my hand again.

  He looked at it and then me and back to my outstretched appendage. My smile grew wider. The idiot was actually considering taking my hand again. Had Izzy not been missing, I might’ve played this game for the next hour or so, but time wasn’t on her side. Not if the Shadows had captured her.

  “Doyle,” I said, “let’s start over. I’m looking for the Tooth Fairy.”

  He pushed his tiny body upright, his eyes narrowing. “No returns.”

  “Excuse me?”

  He blew out a long sigh. “I get it. You think you got a raw deal, but them’s the breaks. We paid you good money. Trust me, the tooth game isn’t nearly as good as everyone thinks.” He motioned to the warehouse door. “Thanks for your business. Have a nice day.”

  I chuckled. “It hasn’t been that great of one so far. But Doyle, my friend,” I yanked on my gloves, “you are about to make things a little better.”

  He backed up a step. “I . . .”

  “Why don’t we start with something easy?” My smile twisted into something much darker. “Take me to your leader.”

  CHAPTER 22

  Doyle reluctantly led me from the warehouse to the main entrance of Fairy Central, a place where very few nonfairies had ever been. I stopped him before we reached the front door, snatching him by the back of the neck and pulling his tiny body behind a Dumpster full of decay-riddled teeth. “Quiet,” I ordered, slapping my hand over his mouth when he started to shriek. I peeked around the Dumpster, watching as two very familiar figures emerged from Fairy Central.

  Detective Locks and her partner, Detective Rabit, didn’t seem to notice me or my fairy captive as they left Fairy Central, both intent on the files in their hands. Eight files to be precise. The Jack the Tooth Ripper files.

  I waited with my hand over Doyle’s mouth for the detectives to leave. When they did I dropped the small fairy and then pushed him forward. “Come on, Doyle. Stop dallying. I don’t have all day.”

  He frowned but didn’t argue as he led me the rest of the way to headquarters. We paused at the steel front door. “The Council’s not going to like this,” he said, his small wings flapping with panic.

  I shrugged. “At the moment I couldn’t care less what the Council likes or dislikes.” My only thoughts were of the missing half fairy. If only I’d stopped her from following me. Hell, I could’ve knocked her over the head and tied her to my bed. Sure, she’d be pissed, but at least she’d be safe.

  “It’s your funeral,” Doyle said, shaking his head. He pressed a few buttons on a keypad and the doors guarding Fairy Central opened. He motioned me inside.

  I ducked down, squeezing my six-foot frame through the three-foot doors. No sooner had I stepped through the entryway than the doors behind me slammed closed. “Chicken Little,” I whispered to the retreating fairy.

  “What do you want?” a voice barked from somewhere down the corridor. The voice was low and deep, a voice used to intimidate. The same tone used by the nuns at the orphanage.

  I squinted into the blackness, seeing nothing but more darkne
ss. “I’m looking for the person in charge.”

  “The Tooth Fairy’s not here.”

  Not what I wanted to hear, but I masked my disappointment. “Not her. I need to speak with the Fairy Council.”

  A long drawn-out sigh echoed from the darkness. “No returns. No refunds.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I’m not here for my baby teeth. I was hired to find your Tooth Fairy and I damn well will find her, with your help, or else . . .”

  Much to my surprise, Clayton came out from the cover of darkness, looking healthy and happy. The little winged demon. “We no longer need your services.”

  “Is that right?”

  “It’s nothing personal.” His Adam’s apple bobbled in his throat, a sure sign of his distress at finding me in the hallway of Fairy Central. “Isabella is safe and sound, so we don’t need you showing up unannounced, causing trouble.”

  I held up my hands. “You want me off the case? Fine. I want to talk to Izzy and then I’m gone.”

  “Out of the question,” Peyton said, appearing at his twin’s side. His tiny face contorted into a sneer. “Isabella never wants to see you again.”

  “Our poor niece has been through too much already thanks to you,” Clayton added.

  My lips curled up. “Half-fairy niece,” I reminded them of their original story. Even if Izzy had never said a word, it was obvious she was in no way related to these two. Izzy was beyond beautiful, while Clayton and Peyton looked like shrunken old guys with wings.

  Just what the hell was going on? Was Izzy really safely tucked away in Fairy Central? I had my doubts. Only one way to find out. I stepped forward, pulling off my gloves.

  The twins leaped back. “Take it easy, Blue,” Clayton choked. “No need to get touchy.”

  “You have thirty seconds to produce Izzy,” I warned as cobalt sparks flickered off my fingertips. “I suggest you don’t dawdle.”

  Clayton faced his twin. For a few seconds they silently communicated. Then Peyton turned to me. “She ain’t here.”

  “No . . .” I said in my most sarcastic of tones.