The Fairyland Murders

by J. A. Kazimer

  “Not another word,” she said.

  “Just tell me this—”

  “No.”

  I ignored her, asking the question that had been bothering me since I’d seen her photo at Fairy Central. The question I wasn’t sure I wanted to know the answer to. “Izzy,” I began, “what do the fairies have on you?”

  She lowered her gaze to the ground, her cheeks heating from either the chilly morning air or embarrassment, I wasn’t sure which. “It doesn’t matter. Once they have what they want . . .”

  “And what’s that, Izzy?”

  “I can’t tell you.”

  “Fine,” I lied. “But you can’t honestly believe they’ll let you go back to your,” I curled my fingers into air quotes, “real life.”

  “I just need a little more time, Blue.” She reached for my arm, but I jerked away before she made contact. I couldn’t bare her touch right now. Not when my senses were still reeling from our kiss in the elevator. “Can you trust me a little longer?” she asked, her eyes shimmering with unshed tears. “Please?”

  I knew it was stupid. Dangerous even.

  But I slowly nodded.

  Fingers crossed behind my back.

  After our brush with death I wasn’t taking any chances. Our first stop was my office for extra ammo for my really big gun, as well as a few other provisions, including the half-empty bottle of whiskey in my desk drawer. Much to my surprise, Izzy insisted on grabbing the New Never City history books she’d been reading. I shrugged. A little light missing magic pea research couldn’t hurt. Not if I kept Izzy occupied while she stayed locked inside my apartment for the next week.

  But now, a few hours later, finally tucked into my apartment safe and sound with a pink-winged fairy, I watched as day settled into night with an odd feeling of dread. I swirled the whiskey in my glass. So much had happened in the last couple of days: Barry’s murder, the fairies’ stockpile of teeth, and the Shadows. I had nothing but questions without answers.

  And yet one question stood foremost in my mind.

  Who wanted Izzy dead?

  The sooner I figured out the who the sooner she would be out of my life. The sooner I could go back to the way things used to be. To my lone-wolf lifestyle. To being a cursed electrode who would never be able to touch Izzy—not the way she deserved to be touched—unless it was a fluke.

  None of this was new. I never was and never would be a nine-to-five, husband-and-father sort of guy. I was better off alone. Always had been. My own parents had known as much when they left me on the steps of the orphanage when I was six months old.

  I shook off the wave of self-pity and refocused my attention on Izzy. Not on her exactly but on who wanted her dead.

  The obvious answer was a fairy. Henrick was my number-one winged suspect at the moment. For some reason even though Izzy claimed to want nothing to do with her fairy brethren, Henrick saw Izzy as a threat to his toothy reign. What better way to ensure his place in history than to remove the competition?

  Only one problem with that scenario, though.

  Henrick had purple wings.

  The fairy-dust junkie had claimed he saw a green-winged fairy following Izzy the night she ordered her nun’s habit from Barry. And the bit of costume-shop wing I’d found at the twins’ apartment was also green.

  Unless Henrick had worn fake wings the night he followed Izzy and then planted the piece of green wing at the twins’ place to throw suspicion off himself.

  He had to know he’d be Detectives Locks’s and Rabit’s top suspect for the Fairyland murders once he became the Tooth Fairy. So why not cast the suspicion on someone else for the killings? Someone with a vibrant shade of green for wings.

  I took a sip of whiskey and glanced at Isabella over the rim of my glass. The alcohol burned a nice numbing path down my esophagus and into my stomach. “Tell me about the night you were attacked at your apartment.”

  She shrugged. “What’s to tell? I was asleep and then I wasn’t. There was a dark figure standing over my bed.”

  I frowned, leaning forward. “Like a Shadow?” Had they tried to kidnap her more than one time? And why? What good would holding Izzy do? As far as the Council was concerned, she was fairy non grata until she agreed to collect teeth.

  “Kind of, but not a Shadow shadow. A solid form. I’m sure of it. I screamed and lashed out, kicking and punching, until I was able to get away.”

  “Could you identify him?”

  She shook her head.

  “Was he tall? Short? Fat?” I frowned. “Have a set of wings? Come on, Izzy. Give me something.”

  “I don’t know!” Her eyes blazed, turning indigo in color. “It was dark. I was half asleep. . . .” She paused, tilting her head. “There was one thing. . . .”

  “Yeah?”

  She shook her head. “It’s probably nothing.”

  “Let me decide that.” I leaned closer to her. “Even the smallest clue can solve the biggest of cases.”

  “He smelled like denture cream.”

  “Denture cream?”

  “I know it sounds crazy.”

  Rubbing my chin, I considered her description of the attack. Something just didn’t sit right. “You weigh, what, a hundred pounds?” Her gasp told me I’d guessed a little too close for her comfort. I quickly moved on to make my point. “What kind of man let’s a hundred-pound chick best him?”

  “Hey,” she said, stabbing her finger at me, “I’m scrappier than I look. And I have damn good wings.”

  My gaze fell to her breasts, concealed under a tight tank top. “Wings. Right.”

  “Now that I think about it,” her tongue poked from her mouth, “I’m fairly sure he had a pair too.”

  “Who?”

  She rolled her eyes. “Try to keep up.”

  “Right,” I said with a laugh. “Our bad guy.” Again it came down to a pair of wings. “Anything else you remember?”

  She shook her head. “It’s your turn to answer a question for me,” she said, grabbing the glass of whiskey from my hand and downing it in one gulp.

  My body heated at the near contact, a bad sign. Izzy was affecting more than my investigational abilities. I cleared my throat. “That ointment in the bathroom was there when I moved in.”

  She laughed. “Good to know, but not the question I had in mind.”

  I sighed. “Fine. I’ll answer one question.”

  All the laughter left her face and she grew serious. Too serious. Whatever she was about to ask would change our relationship. I wasn’t sure I was ready for that.

  She grabbed my hand, clenching her fist as a current rocked her body, but she didn’t let go. I tried to pull away. She wouldn’t let me. Instead, she squeezed my hand tighter. Her skin felt hot, so hot I worried I was doing her serious damage.

  “If you could have the very thing you want more than anything else in the world,” she said, her voice soft, “but it would cost you your soul, would you sell it?”

  I thought of my curse. Would I sell my soul for the truth? For freedom from what I was? I didn’t have a ready answer, which was good since Izzy wasn’t finished with her question.

  “Or would you do the moral thing,” she paused, her eyes on mine, “giving up everything, maybe even your life, for what was right?”

  I relaxed, a smile tugging at the corners of my lips. The electrical voltage churning inside me quieted to a mere hum. “That’s kind of a chicken-or-egg question, Izzy.”

  She dropped my hand, pushing to her feet. “Just answer it.”

  “It depends.”

  “On?”

  I slowly stood, our faces now inches apart. “I guess we’ll find out.”

  CHAPTER 30

  The next morning, as the sun rose higher in the sky, Izzy emerged from my bedroom, her body covered in my favorite T-shirt. It hit her mid creamy thigh. I tried to tear my gaze away from her pale, lush flesh, but my eyeballs seemed to have a will of their own. I really needed to get a life, one far enough away from the
temptation of pink wings. “Morning,” I said once I found my voice.

  She grunted in response. Guess the pink-winged fairy wasn’t a morning person. I frowned, watching as she staggered toward the kitchen with slow, measured steps, as if she couldn’t bear her weight.

  “You okay?” I asked, tapping my gloved fingers against the tabletop.

  Rather than answer, she lurched from the coffeepot to the refrigerator, knocking a stack of dishes to the floor. They hit the ground and shattered, sending bits of ceramic flying in all directions.

  “Whoa . . .” I jumped up, catching her thin frame as she slumped toward the glass-coated ground. “Izzy,” I demanded, shaking her gently, “open your eyes.”

  When she failed to respond I scooped her up, holding her body against mine. Heat flared between us, but not of the lustful or even electrical kind. Her body was burning up. So hot the very touch of her skin felt like a lightning strike. I carried her to the couch, laying her down with as much gentleness as I could muster.

  Once she was on the sofa her eyes fluttered open. They looked glassy and unfocused. A sheen of sweat beaded her upper lip. Something was very wrong. “What’s going on?” I asked, running my gloved hand over her brow. “Are you sick?”

  “I’m fine,” she snapped, trying to push off the couch. I held her down. She fought for a few seconds and then fell back against the cushions, exhausted. “Damn you, Blue,” she cursed and then closed her eyes, slipping into unconsciousness.

  For the next few hours, while her body burned with fever and shook with chills, I sat by her side, my fear increasing with every soft moan from her lips.

  “Fight it, Izzy,” I said, brushing my hand down her cheek. I pulled a blanket over her, doing my best to keep her warm. When that didn’t work I rubbed my hands together until they burned with electricity and wrapped my body against her until the chills ravaging her stilled.

  After five hours her fever broke and she fell into a fitful sleep. I staggered to my feet, feeling exhausted and terrified. I glanced around my apartment, my eyes falling on the open doorway to my bedroom. Izzy’s suitcase sat on the floor.

  I took a deep breath, running a hand over my face. I knew what had to be done. Her life was at stake. I had no choice, I told myself. Not that that lessened the creep factor as I stomped to my bedroom and ripped open Izzy’s suitcase.

  At first glance everything looked on the up-and-up. A couple of pairs of jeans and tank tops sat folded neatly on top. Under those were two sweaters, complete with wing holes, and then a week’s worth of panties, socks, and C-cup bras in an array of bright colors. I felt like a perv as I lifted each tiny, lacy pair of panties up for inspection. No one ever claimed being a PI was all glitz and glamour. A blue-haired boy did what he had to do.

  Three panties in, a flash of white plastic gained my notice. I pulled the panties back, not surprised to find several rolls of mint-flavored dental floss. I pictured Barry’s lifeless corpse swinging from the same flavored floss. A shiver ran up my spine, but I shook it off. She was a fairy; it made sense that she would carry an abundance of dental floss.

  Or so I told myself.

  I set the floss aside and dug deeper. Inside the left cup of a white satin bra, I found what I was looking for. What I’d hoped I wouldn’t find. A clear plastic vial sat at the bottom of the suitcase. A very empty vial.

  I closed my eyes and swore softly.

  Izzy needed more help than I’d once thought.

  CHAPTER 31

  While Izzy slept under a mountain of blankets on my couch, I prepared for what was to come. I stuffed my really big gun in my waistband, shoved a wicked-looking knife in my boot, and pulled on a pair of my thickest gloves.

  Izzy moaned in her sleep as I slipped past the couch. I paused, staring down at the sleeping fairy. Fear rose in me. Would I be able to save her or was she already too far gone? “Hang in there, Izzy. I will make things right,” I said, brushing my thumb down her cheek. Her face bunched and then relaxed. I swallowed hard, taking one last look at her asleep on the couch before heading out my front door.

  Less than ten seconds later I was across the hall, knocking on my neighbor’s door. Gizelle answered immediately, her head stuffed inside an overly large turban. “Blue.” She threw her arms wide, showing off jiggling arm fat and gauzy fabric. “I knew it was you.”

  I hid a smile. Of course she’d known it was me. She’d peeked through the peephole before she answered. “Gizelle.” I nodded. “Would you mind doing me a favor?”

  She playfully moved to slap my arm, but I stepped back in time. The landlord frowned on me frying his tenants. Gizelle didn’t seem to notice my sidestepping, though. “Of course I will. Your wish is my command.”

  Rather than sounding generous, her offer set the hair on the back of my neck on edge. I liked Gizelle just fine, but in an absolutely hands-off way. But I did need her help.

  Someone had to check in on Izzy. I didn’t want to leave her alone—not now—not when she was too weak to protect herself. Not that I’d been much of a protector so far. Hell, under my watchful eyes she’d been shot, kidnapped, and singed in an apartment fire. Now this. I vowed to make it up to her, to keep her safe and healthy, no matter what it took.

  From this moment forward.

  I hoped.

  Taking a shuddering breath, I shot Gizelle my best smile before asking her to watch over Izzy for the next couple of hours. Lucky for me, Gizelle agreed without question, but I still had a problem.

  Izzy.

  From past experience I knew she would not be pleased, not only with my absence but also being left alone with my kooky neighbor. I’d be lucky if she didn’t string me up with one of those rolls of dental floss when I returned. Or worse, I’d find Gizelle hanging in my linen closet. Not that I had a closet for linens, mind you. But the point was the same.

  I’d just have to deal with the fallout.

  With Izzy in Gizelle’s overly ringed but safe hands, I headed from my apartment to the street below with one goal in mind. A goal that grated on my every nerve, but I wasn’t in the PI business to have fun. Or make much money. Which made me wonder just why the hell was I in the business at all?

  The answer to my question wasn’t an easy one. Neither was what I was about to do, which was locate a dealer in the heart of Fairyland willing to sell me what Izzy desperately needed to survive.

  Everything was for sale at the right price.

  Unless, of course, you were a blue-haired PI with electricity issues in a neighborhood run by fairies, who, from the dirty looks I received, weren’t fans of the aforementioned. My lack of funds didn’t help matters either. Dealers rarely afforded credit to strangers, let alone strangers without wings in a community full of their own feathery kind.

  After nearly getting my ass kicked by the seventh dealer I approached, I settled on a different tactic. I pulled my cell phone from the pocket of my jeans, wincing as the dealer smoldering on the ground moaned. “Quiet,” I said, kicking him in the side as I dialed Little Bo Peep.

  “Not a good time, Blue,” she said in greeting.

  Didn’t I know it. I cleared my throat. “Hey, Bo, it’s good to hear your voice.”

  “What do you want this time?”

  “I need a little help.”

  “Dream on,” she said, her soft chuckle turning to full-on laughter. “The burn marks on my thighs haven’t healed from the last favor I did for you.”

  I grinned at the memory. “I apologized, right?”

  Her sigh burst through the line. “Just tell me what you want.” She listened intently while I explained what I needed, interrupting a few times for clarification. When I finished she was quiet for a long moment. For a few seconds I thought she’d hung up, but then she spoke. “It’s gonna cost you.”

  Great. After paying rent on my apartment with Penelopee’s retainer check, I had less than a hundred bucks in my bank account, and much less than that in my pocket. “How about a discount for old times’ sake?”
>
  “How about I hang up right now?”

  “Fine,” I said, crossing my fingers behind my back. “I’ll get the money. Do we have a deal?”

  Silence filled the phone line, and then she finally spoke. “A friend of mine will meet you in the park by the Three Little Pigs memorial in an hour. Don’t be late, and Blue . . .” She paused, and the bluish hairs on the back of my neck rose with electricity. “Leave the hardware at home. If my friend so much as thinks you have a weapon, the deal is off.”

  “Thanks, Bo,” I said. “I owe you one.”

  “I’ll make sure to collect.” With that she hung up, leaving me to wonder when she planned to do just that. Bo wasn’t known for her generosity, and I suspected I’d find out soon enough what her help would cost.

  I was pretty sure I wouldn’t like the price.

  Not that I could afford it anyway.

  CHAPTER 32

  I had no sooner hung up with Bo Peep when my cell phone rang. I checked the caller ID expecting to see Gizelle’s number pop up. But instead, an unfamiliar number with a New Never City area code flashed on the small screen.

  “Reynolds,” I answered.

  “Blue? Oh thank God,” Penelopee’s voice crackled through the line, cutting in and out, as if she were in a tunnel.

  “Princess,” I cupped my other ear, straining to hear her, “can you speak up? Sounds like we have a bad connection.”

  Static filled the line. “I need your help. . . .”

  “Penelopee? Help for what? Hello?”

  “. . . Dust Ave and Seventh Street . . . coffee shop.... Hurry,” she said, and then the call dropped, leaving me listening to dead air.

  “Shit.” I ended the call and checked my watch. I had fifty minutes until the meet with Bo Peep’s friend. Barely enough time to make it to Dust and Seventh and back, let alone discourage—i.e, fry—Penelopee’s ex and recover a sex tape. If that was why she had called at all. A part of me suspected a much deeper reason, namely a growing obsession with yours bluely.