Tinsel in a Tangle

by Kimbra Swain

  The car rocked in a swaying motion. Stepping backwards, I moved slowly away in shock. I pulled my cell phone out to call Levi to pick me up. My hands shook causing me to drop the phone.

  I reached down to pick it up as my heart pounded in my throat.

  “Grace!” Looking up I met, Dylan's eyes as he exited the med center. I turned back to his car in confusion. It continued to rock. Squatting in the middle of the parking lot, I shifted eyes back and forth. Vaguely, I saw Dylan running to me before a flash of headlights and a searing pain erupted in my head as it made contact with a chrome bumper.

  December 17th

  I woke up on a cold metal slab with bright fluorescence in the room. Wiping my eyes, I rose up realizing the reason it was cold was because I was naked on the metal table.

  Looking down at my arm where the tattoo that stored my power stained my otherwise flawless skin, I expected to see the dark red jewel and black filigree. However, it glimmered in silver light. The heart stone flashed a sapphire blue. Reaching up to my hair, my vision focused on platinum locks. “Gloriana,” I muttered.

  A man entered the room, then screamed like a girl. “You are alive!” he exclaimed. He reached to pull out a cell phone as I stared at him and the lettering in the door behind him. Morgue.

  “Shi-yat! Where is Dylan Riggs?” I shouted at the stunned man.

  He muttered into the phone, “She's not dead. Get down here.” He hung up trembling.

  I heard running footsteps, and Levi burst into the room. He stopped,grg gawking at me. I grabbed the sheet folded on the table next to me throwing it over my naked body. He rushed up throwing his arms around me.

  “I thought you were gone,” he whispered in my ear. He shook as he pulled back to meet my eyes.

  “I died?”

  “They tried to bring you back for hours,” he muttered. Then he kissed me on the cheek. “Grace, don't leave me.”

  I returned his embrace. My emotional bard. “I’m not going anywhere.”

  “How are you still here?”

  “I use a lot of power to look like Grace. When I’m like this, I’ve got a lot more power, but a lot less control. The glamour of Grace is not only just a look, but a binding on wild fairy powers. However, it’s that power that makes me immortal. I suppose, it’s what’s keeping me alive. Levi, just be prepared to stop me, if it comes to that,” I said.

  He nodded, but grimaced knowing what I was asking him to do.

  “What's going on with you and Kady?”

  He laughed. “You just woke up in the morgue, and you are asking me about my girlfriend. Well, ex-girlfriend.”

  “Oh, no,” I muttered. “What happened?”

  “She said that she was tired of playing second fiddle,” he muttered.

  “Levi, are you cheating on her?” I asked.

  “No, she meant you,” he said cautiously.

  “You informed her that you and I aren't together, right?”

  “Multiple times, but you've been sick. I wanted to stay here with you, and she got mad. She doesn't understand our relationship,” he said.

  “Well, I'm not your mother,” I said.

  “Definitely not,” he said.

  “Not a sister or cousin,” I continued.

  “No,” he said as his grip tightened around my waist. The thin sheet wasn't much of a barrier between us.

  “How about a best friend?” I suggested.

  “With benefits?” he smirked.

  “No!” I laughed at him.

  “I'll try that with her. Maybe she will listen,” he said.

  “Where is he?” I finally asked.

  “Oh shit, Grace, he went after Deacon,” he said.

  “Help me up,” I said. He backed off the edge of the table steadying me as I stood.

  “I need juice,” I said feeling depleted.

  He rolled up his sleeve, revealing the Celtic knotwork tattoo on his arm. While teaching him to use his basic magic skills over the past few months, we realized that he could store power like I did, but we could also swap power back and forth. He called it swapping gravy, because he knew how much I got a kick out of his favorite euphemism for sex, locking legs and swapping gravy. He embarrassed me every time he said it.

  I ran my pale cool hand over his tattoo, and my head whipped back as I pulled power from him to me. Storing it in the blue jewel on my arm, the ecstasy of the tendrils of power pulsed into every part of my body. Involuntary, I pressed my body to his.

  “Grace, that's enough,” he said as the force of his magic powered by his will slammed into me. I released my grip. The cold fairy in me squealed with the delight of drinking in power from him.

  No matter how many times we practiced sharing power, the recipient always drifted on the edge of an erotic experience. I grimaced.

  “Sorry,” I muttered.

  “It was good for me, what about you?” he teased, but quickly sobered. “We need to find a way to do that without the foreplay or Dylan is going to kill me.”

  “I agree,” I replied. “Help me outside so I can shift us to Deacon’s farm.” Before we left the morgue, I used power to clothe myself in the long silver dress I normally wore in this state.

  Levi helped me outside and made our way to the nearest oak. “Let me handle him. He’s going to be pissed.”

  “Who was in his car in the parking lot?” I asked remembering the couple in the Camaro.

  “That wasn’t his car, Grace. One of the city councilmen just bought one. I think it was him,” he said.

  “Fucking fairies,” I muttered.

  He nodded as I put my hand on the oak. The old tree spoke to me, warning me of tension near the sight I requested to make a way. I thanked the tree as I opened the way. As Levi and I stepped through, I saw Dylan throwing haymakers at Deacon Giles. Deacon dodged him, begging him to stop. A trickle of blood rolled out of his nose where Dylan had made contact at some point.

  Dylan's searing anger rippled off him in waves of heat. The atmosphere outside Deacon’s farmhouse was soupy like the dead of summer.

  Forcing power and my will through my voice, I spoke, “Enough!” As the tingling sensation of magic wound itself around my limbs and vibrated through my chest. My skin illuminated as the filigree from my tattoo swirled up my arm, then across my chest.

  Dylan's coiled form stopped mid-punch. Turning toward my voice, his burning eyes fixed on me. Deacon hit his knees, hiding his face. Frost stretched from the hem of my dress toward the two men before me.

  Slowly I approached Dylan whose face was blank. No emotion. I couldn't tell if he was mad or shocked. As I moved closer, tracks of tears glistened on his cheeks. Stopping several feet from him, confusion finally registered on his face.

  “Grace?”

  “Dylan Riggs, you will not harm my servant,” I spoke realizing that the fairy queen in me had an agenda.

  “Grace?” he muttered again. The blue flames in his eyes settled. As he stepped toward me, I threw my hands up.

  “Don’t touch me,” I warned.

  “How? You were gone. She said you were gone.”

  “Apparently, Gloriana is hard to kill,” I spoke of myself in the third person because the ice queen within me was a being I'd tried to suppress, but as the power flowed through me I knew she was the only thing keeping me alive. “If you touch me, I might melt. Please don't.”

  He nodded understanding. “Is the curse still there?”

  “It is, but I can control it better this way,” I said.

  The fire returned to his eyes. “You!” he growled at Deacon.

  “I swear on my life. I have not cursed the Queen,” Deacon defended himself from his prostrate position.

  “Your father said…,” Dylan started.

  “Father hates Deacon for good reason. Deacon was a very bad fairy before getting kicked out of the Otherworld. I don’t think he’s directly behind my curse. However, I do believe he knows something that may help us. Deacon please stand and speak with me.”

&
nbsp; Climbing off his knees, Deacon Giles stood before me in denim overalls and a long sleeve flannel shirt. He brushed off his pants rising to full height. He was well over six foot tall. He could have smashed Dylan like a bug, if he’d changed into the half-goat, half-demon form of Krampus.

  “How may I serve you, my Queen?”

  “My father suggested that you might have something to do with this death curse,” I accused him.

  “I would never do anything to harm you. I swore my fealty,” he said.

  Taking several steps toward him, I stood close to the still stunned Dylan Riggs. It took everything I had not to reach out to him. Once before his abilities as a Phoenix forced me out of the ice queen facade. However, if he touched me now while suppressing this power, I wasn't sure I would be able to control the curse as Grace.

  “You are the horned god, worshipped by covens across the world. Perhaps a coven requested a death curse that you granted,” I suggested.

  His dark eyes flickered with recollection. “I granted a death curse to a Cane Creek Coven 4 days ago,” he admitted. “They didn't call you by name.”

  “Lisette,” Levi muttered behind me. He'd been so quiet that I'd forgotten he was there.

  Dylan's breathing increased again, and his knuckles popped as he clinched his fists.

  “Deacon, maybe in the future you should require a name before you grant curses,” I suggested holding back a snarl.

  “I offer my life,” he said producing a long machete from his pants. He had fought Dylan hand to hand never drawing the weapon. He nudged the weapon to me. I crossed my arms, shaking my head. He offered it to Dylan. I refused to look at him to allow him to make a decision. Dylan turned his back on him.

  “Can you reverse the curse?” I asked. My knowledge of curses and hexes was limited to placing them, not removing them.

  “No. However, the curse draws power as I do until the solstice. If you can fight it until then, it will fade away,” he explained.

  “Three days,” I muttered. “You will change your policies, Krampus! Do you understand?”

  His form shifted as I spoke his true name. Two long twisted curling horns rose from his head, and his feet turned to hooves. His nose elongated making his mouth a hairy snout with slender, sharp teeth. Dylan and Levi both jumped in front of me. I chuckled at the chivalry, but a warm feeling rushed over my heart. I rarely felt my heart beat in the cold state, but it thumped hard.

  The goat man knelt on one knee. “I will do as you request, my Queen.”

  “Very well, we take our leave,” I said turning to the gravel driveway at the farm. Dylan's red Camaro sat there with the driver’s door open. As I approached it, he stepped up next to me.

  “Are you okay?” he asked.

  “No. Are you?” I returned.

  “Not at all,” he said.

  “Levi, I'm going to shift you back to the trailer. We will meet you there.”

  “You sure?” he asked.

  I touched his cheek. “Thank you, my dear bard. I am sure.” Dylan leered at my hand, knowing that he couldn't touch me.

  I touched the tree we arrived through and requested that it send Levi home. It obliged me sending Levi home the moment he touched it.

  Dylan opened the passenger door for me as I gathered my dress to take a seat. I slid down into the leather seat and breathed in Dylan's scent. My senses were always heightened in this form. I loved the familiar mix of leather, peppermint and musk.

  He jumped in speeding away. As I looked in the side mirror, Deacon Giles had shifted back into his farmers clothes, and walked toward the house.

  Once we reached the main road back to town, Dylan spoke. “Shouldn't you go back to the hospital?”

  “Did that car hit me?” I asked.

  “You don't remember?”

  “Bright lights and searing pain,” I said.

  “Yes,” he muttered.

  “I woke up in the morgue,” I said.

  He jerked the car to the side of the road, cutting off the ignition. He gripped the steering wheel.

  “I never imagined I'd feel such pain. You died right there on the pavement, but Dr. Mistborne fought to bring you back for hours. At some point, she gave up. I wanted to kill something. Forgive me for going after him,” he said.

  “No,” I said flatly.

  “I know I promised, but Grace…”

  I waved my hand at him, because he’d misunderstood. “You were right. He was involved. I'm not angry with you.”

  “You've been angry with me since I returned,” he muttered.

  “I was never mad, just afraid,” I said. His eyes met mine as he groaned.

  “And now I can't touch you,” he complained.

  “Three days isn't so long,” I said.

  “Feels like an eternity,” he said. “Levi can touch you. It isn't fair!” he whined.

  I giggled at him and dared to tease. “Yes, he even loaned me power.”

  “You swapped gravy with that son of a bitch!” he said, as the killer smile appeared.

  I laughed, “I did. It was wonderful.”

  “I always knew you wanted him,” he said.

  “I want you both,” I pushed the tease.

  “No.”

  “No?”

  “No, you are mine, and I am yours,” he said as his eyes smoldered.

  “Yes, but we've both got to stop dying.”

  “I agree,” he said. “So, I can't touch you?”

  “You want to take the chance?”

  He groaned, “No.”

  Sitting next to Dylan at the bar, Nestor served us both a cup of his decadent coffee. It eased my nerves. Dylan also visibly relaxed, but I keenly felt the radiant heat of his body. The cold I felt wanted it. This was torture.

  “Thanks, Nestor,” he muttered.

  Levi spent most of the day flipping through websites on the laptop computer he had recently bought. He was sure he could google enough things to find out who these brothers actually were.

  “I think we should go to the jail, confront them, and demand them to tell us who they are,” I said.

  “You are not going anywhere near them,” he said. “This all started when they came to town.”

  “Yes, but Deacon said this was the witches, not the goof ball brothers,” I replied.

  “Perhaps let Levi go talk to them. It will be a good exercise for his magic development. See what he can find out from them. They are harmless, mostly,” Nestor offered.

  “Where is he?” Dylan asked.

  “He went to meet Kady at the diner for dinner, and to talk to Luther about the one they caught stealing food,” I said. “We can send him to the jail afterwards. He and Kady are fighting.”

  “About what?” Dylan asked.

  I sipped my coffee and didn’t answer. Nestor stopped drying glasses, waiting for my answer.

  “She has some reservations about his relationship with me,” I tried putting it delicately.

  “What relationship?” Dylan asked.

  “That’s just it, we don’t have one. Other than he lives with me, and we get along very well. She thinks I’m a threat, I guess,” I said.

  “I can understand that,” Dylan said.

  “Do you think Levi is a threat to us?” I asked.

  “Is there an us?” Dylan asked.

  Nestor cleared his throat and walked to the end of the bar to talk to one of the patrons that came in during the lunch hour. The bar opened around lunch and stayed open well into the night. Occasionally, Nestor would have a rush at lunch. However, today there were only three other people in the bar besides Dylan, Nestor and me.

  I looked him in the eye. “You know there is,” I replied. The last twelve hours were the longest I’ve spent in fairy form since I compartmentalized Gloriana ages ago. One of the things I’d forgotten about was that she couldn’t lie. Dylan hadn’t picked up on it yet, but he knew something was different. I’d never lied to him, but I’d certainly hidden my feelings. Gloriana was an open book.<
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  “When you go back to being Grace, are you going to admit that?” he asked.

  “I am Grace, Dylan.”

  “I know, but you are so different like this. Honest,” he said.

  Okay, so he had picked up on it. Once a lawman, always a lawman.

  “Well, Detective Riggs, perhaps I am a bit different, but I’m still me,” I said.

  “Prove it,” he said.

  “Fuck off,” I said.

  He laughed, “Yes, you are still Grace. Vulgar mouth.”

  “Too bad you can’t touch me, I’d love to show you how vulgar,” I teased.

  “Good grief! Stop!” he begged.

  Across the room, a loud clatter caught our attention. Nestor was wrestling across the bar with one of the patrons. Dylan sprinted to aid him. I approached cautiously. The beady eyed man, clearly inebriated, played tug of war with Nestor over a bowl of nuts. It was the same man I’d seen in the bar a couple of days ago when Levi put up the decorations.

  Along the bar, Nestor had bowls of mixed nuts for the patrons to munch on. Sometimes he had pretzels and other snacks too. But today, it was just nuts, and the angry man, clearly a brother, tried wrenching the bowl from Nestor’s grip. Once Dylan joined the fray, the patron released his grip and went flying backwards off the stool into the floor.

  “My Queen, have mercy,” he screamed.

  “Somebody kill me now,” I said.

  “Grace!” Dylan spouted. I supposed my choice of words was inappropriate.

  I waved him off. “Get up you fool!” I ordered the half-drunk man. If he was completely drunk, he wouldn’t have the wits to know who I was, much less speak.

  “I just wanted the bowl. I mean no harm,” he said.

  “My bowls have been going missing all week,” Nestor admitted.

  “Have you been stealing bowls all week?” I asked.

  “Yes, ma’am,” he lowered his head in shame.

  “What’s your name?” I asked.

  “Chad,” he replied.

  “Well, Chadwick, you are going down to the jail to spend some quality time with your brothers,” I replied.

  “Yeah, I know several of them got pinched,” he replied.