Once Upon A Kiss: Seventeen Romantic Faerie Tales

by Alethea Kontis

  “Well, she hurt me!” Rush protests.

  “Did she?” Larson asks.

  Rush leans back in his chair, outraged. “Yeah!”

  Larson waves a hand, and his wedding band gleams in the low light. “The thing is, Lewis can only do harm when she helps—like if she has to fix a dislocated shoulder, or—”

  “No.”

  Larson thumps his fingers on the desk. “Rush, the thing is … you have serious issues with women. Mouthing off to Bohdi because you thought Hung Sun Ahn betrayed you was just the latest.”

  Rush bristles. “I was stupid! That doesn’t give Lewis the right to … to … She assaulted me!”

  Steepling his fingers, Larson eyes him carefully. The Gregorian chanting gets louder. “She didn’t assault you, she didn’t touch you, and without a medical exam, for all we know, you’re just experiencing temporary erectile dysfunction.”

  “You had to have heard her music when she cursed me!”

  That earns Rush a blank stare.

  “Felt her magic,” Rush amends.

  Frowning, Larson continues, “If you are really suffering from erectile dysfunction—”

  Rush exhales loudly, his skin heating.

  Larson appears not to notice. “The way Lewis’s magic works, she might have saved your life.”

  Rush half jumps out of his chair. “No!”

  Larson’s jaw shifts. “Actually, yes. You realize, at this point I can’t assign you a female partner.”

  Rush rolls his eyes. He doesn’t want a female partner.

  Larson waves a hand. “Yeah, yeah, I know … you don’t care. Don’t start on your spiel about women not being as strong and being more risk averse than your average man.”

  Rush’s jaw gets hard. “Those are just facts.”

  “Yes, they are facts,” Larson continues. “But facts without context are useless. Having women on our team gives us a strategic advantage. We’re encountering magical cultures that are matriarchal. Certain elven territories, unicorns, the Amazons in Nornheim—”

  “They’re real?” Rush asks, eyes getting wide, and sitting up straighter. He wonders if they look like Wonder Woman—some human legends about mythological beings have worked out to be oddly accurate.

  “—and the trolls,” Larson finishes. “You mouthing off could cause an inter-realm incident.”

  Rush’s nostrils flare. “With all due respect—”

  Larson leans closer. “And you getting wasted and describing in graphic detail the time you saw Lewis naked in Jotunheim could get you killed!”

  Rush’s jaw drops. “I did that?”

  Larson’s eyes narrow. “To Cruz, a week ago, at the after-work party.”

  Rush rubs the back of his neck, trying to remember the party. He thinks he recalls telling Cruz he is lucky to be gay. How it seemed purer to be attracted to people you really respected and admired without any biological imperative getting in the way. If he thinks back about it … yeah, Lewis’s name might have come up. At the time Rush had seen her au naturale he’d really, passionately, disliked her. She was so useless and bumbling; she was, and is, a bleeding heart liberal. And she’s so full of herself and how smart she is; she can’t keep her mouth shut and is always spouting off about stupid things like the velociraptor equivalent of Mad Cow Disease. She’s lazy; she never does anything with her hair more than a ponytail or messy bun, doesn’t wear makeup, and always dresses in those scrubs and huge lab coats. What’s more, she’s not that attractive—besides her tits, which are admittedly spectacular. Still, when he’d accidentally peeked through the crack in the door in Gem’s little inn, if it hadn’t been for fear of what Patel would have done to him, he might have busted in. He’s not a rapist, he’s not that pathetic, but at that moment he’d felt pathetic enough to fall to his knees and beg her for whatever scraps of attention she might have given him. Maybe it had just been the stress of combat and no sex, but after weeks of death, Lewis had looked like Life.

  “Do you know Patel doesn’t have to consciously try to kill you for you to wind up dead?”

  Larson’s words startle Rush back into the present. “That’s true?” He’d heard that whispered around the department.

  Larson sighs. “There’s some guys in the physics department saying that. The pair of them, Lewis and Patel, are a vortex of the impossible, the improbable, and just plain weird.” The chanting gets louder. “But Lewis’s acts of improbability always are tied to life. I’m not sure you should have this undone the normal way. Maybe this is a time for some reflection?”

  “I want it undone now,” Rush says.

  “Lewis will be back from Alfheim in two weeks,” Larson says, his jaw hard.

  “I want it fixed,” Rush protests.

  Larson shrugs. “Then go to medical.”

  Rush imagines probes and electrodes, and where they will put the probes and electrodes. “I’ll wait,” he growls.

  “Good,” says Larson tightly.

  Rush’s nails dig into the chair’s armrests. He isn’t going to wait, he decides. He’s going to meet Lewis’s challenge head on. Two weeks. It should be doable. He’s smart, he’s handsome, and he’s a Navy SEAL—well, former Navy SEAL. He’s pretty sure SEALs have their own erotica section on Amazon’s virtual shelves. And he has had a relationship before, he knows the basics—like how it’s best to avoid one if your job takes you away from home and your girl because she’ll cheat on you and leave you feeling like a fool.

  The phone on the desk rings. Picking it up, Larson says, “Yeah, he’s here, I can convey a message,” and then the director says, “Oh.” The tightness in Larson’s jaw and the steeliness in his eyes vanish, and it makes Rush’s skin crawl.

  Putting the phone down, in a too-careful voice Larson says, “Rush … that was the front desk. Do you know a Jeff Singer?”

  Rush thinks of the picture in his room, countless afternoons spent catching ball, and guitar lessons in the apartment complex with paper-thin walls. “Yeah … yeah, I do.”

  He sees Larson’s Adam’s apple bob. “I’m sorry.”

  Chapter 4

  Rush pulls into the funeral home in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights. The magic of Ragnarok doesn’t extend to the ‘burbs much, but the weather does. Arlington Heights has the same dreary winter weather—but worse. Northwest and away from the lake it’s colder and windier.

  The funeral home is a neat and tidy building of heavy brick that would probably look a lot nicer in any other season. The trees surrounding it are black and skeletal, and the six inches of old snow on the ground is stained the same dirty gray as the sky.

  Parking the car, Rush looks into the back seat. His guitar and a duffel bag are there. Everything that was in his room back at the department. He’d never gotten his own place; it was cheaper and more convenient to stay on site, and you never had to worry about a wandering troll keeping you from getting to work. It was more fun, too; there was always something going on with the other guys who chose to live there.

  Taking a deep breath, Larson’s words ring in his mind. “There was a car accident. Your friend Jeff was killed instantly. Maybe now would be a good time for some leave, as much time as you need.”

  Rush knows what he was really saying. “Straighten out before you come back.” Now he’s lost his friend and his home.

  Stepping out of the car, he smooths the suit he’s got on, the same one he wears when he does security detail for the mayor. There are a lot of cars in the parking lot, but no one is outside in the biting cold. He feels like the forty yards to the door may be one of the longest humps he’s ever done and can’t quite make his feet move.

  Rush had been five when he ran into Jeff walking his dog. It had been a hot evening and Jeff had been wearing shorts. Jeff was a Marine and an Iraq war veteran who’d had both legs amputated below the knee after an IED accident. Rush, being a totally oblivious kid, had asked him where he got his “bionic” legs. Friendship had grown from there. They lived across from each othe
r in the same apartment complex. Jeff had been getting vocational training on the GI bill. Rush’s mom had been hanging onto one dead-end job after another, letting one boyfriend after another into their tiny home. When Rush needed a place to hide, Jeff was there. It was Jeff who inspired Rush to join the service. If it hadn’t been for Jeff, Rush probably would have wound up another loser white supremacist punk smoking weed and living in a fantasy of racial grandeur.

  Rush swallows, takes a deep breath, and hears music. A single voice, distant, like he’s hearing the song through a closed door, wafts gently on the breeze. Amazing Grace? That would be a nice touch. Jeff had an eclectic taste in music, and he did like gospel.

  Rush finds his feet moving across the lot. The sun breaks through the clouds, catching on snow swirling in the wind, making it sparkle. The sounds of the voice swells just as the door of the funeral home opens, and Jeff’s widow, Deanna, steps out.

  The music stops, and so does Rush. “Hi, ma’am,” he says, giving her a nod.

  Deanna had gone through chemo a few years back for breast cancer. If it’s possible, she looks worse now. Her gray hair is pulled back in a not terribly neat ponytail, her lips are cracked and red, and her face is hollowed out around her red-rimmed eyes. There are deep lines around her mouth and on her forehead. She’s not wearing a coat, and the dress she has on hangs on her like a sack.

  “I thought I heard you out here, Rush,” she says.

  Rush blinks, he hadn’t said a word.

  She holds out her arms for a hug and Rush goes awkwardly forward. They’re not friends, Deanna and him, but Jeff loved her and it seems like the right thing to do. She holds onto him a little too long, like she’s afraid he’ll bolt, which he’s beginning to think he might. “The other kids are here, but I was afraid you wouldn’t make it.”

  “Other kids” are her and Jeff’s kids which Rush’s never really felt he’s part of—and she didn’t exactly help on that score. He hears a tinkling of magic, like bells, and Deanna grasps his shoulder. “Is that a unicorn?”

  He’s sure she’s seeing things, but it’s an opportunity for an escape. Rush pulls away fast and looks over his shoulder. There is a damn unicorn, standing not twenty feet away in a thin beam of sunlight. Its pearlescent horn is the source of the tinkling. It snuffles and stamps the ground expectantly.

  Rush curses not having his rifle. Unicorns are more dangerous than male trolls: they’re a lot smarter, and their magic can become a whole bell choir fast. Before he can worry about it, the creature vanishes.

  Deanna puts a hand to her mouth. “I’ve never seen a magical creature before.”

  He doesn’t mention that he is technically a magical creature. It’s not something you talk about, even to family; not everyone is thrilled about humans becoming magical, the Department of Defense, for one. The magic Rush and his friends have is contagious; it spreads like HIV. You’d think the DOD would like magical super soldiers, but the way magic manifests is unpredictable. You can wind up with super soldiers like Rush, or weapons on a permanently short fuse like Patel. And some people in the DOD just don’t like it; they say guys like Rush aren’t even human anymore.

  “Let’s get inside,” he says, holding the door open. Just before he follows her in, he says, “Wonder what called it.”

  “I think it heard your singing,” Deanna says, leading him into a tastefully dim room with thick carpeting and warm lighting. “When I heard you singing Amazing Grace, it lifted my heart.”

  Had he been singing? It’s possible he got caught up in the sound of magic for a minute.

  She looks at him imploringly. “Maybe you can sing it to the guests?”

  Rush feels himself blush all the way to his hairline.

  “You don’t have to,” Deanna says quickly, and he nods gratefully. Taking his arm, she says, “Are you staying out here tonight? You’re welcome to stay at our place, you know.”

  “Thanks,” he says, and then they’re passing through a throng of people, Deanna introducing him as her “neighbor and other son.” He manages hellos to her grown kids, Andrew, Anthony, and Bianca. Rush has stood up to Frost Giants, yetis, trolls, and even would-be-gods, but feeling like an interloper, he doesn’t quite meet their eyes as he makes his way into the viewing room.

  Approaching the casket is harder than he expects. He’d seen Jeff just a few months before, right when he got back from Asgard and Jotunheim and had been honorably discharged. It hadn’t felt honorable—it had felt like being cast out. Rush’s friend had looked all of his forty-six years then, but he hadn’t acted like it. He’d taken time off from his plumbing business, they’d played Battlefield until dawn, and hung out like teenagers. Now, Rush finds himself getting ridiculously angry about the way the makeup artists have made Jeff’s skin too flush, and that they gave him a clean shave. Jeff always wore a short, neat beard to hide the scars he got from the IED. They’ve managed to hide those, too. Rush’s mouth curls up and his eyes get hot, but he knows Jeff wouldn’t want him to make a scene. He takes a deep breath … and lets it out in a hum, soft enough that no one will be able to hear. Amazing Grace, like he’d heard before, or maybe imagined. Jeff would like it.

  “Awww … Rush, damn it, you’re making me cry.”

  The voice comes directly in front of him between the flowers that surround the casket. Rush’s head jerks up, and he stops humming, but the music of magic continues on without him. He’s used to hearing magic now and that doesn’t freak him out—but the ghost of Jeff standing between the flowers of the casket makes his eyes go wide. He knows it’s a ghost because he can sort of see through him. Or maybe he’s not seeing a ghost. Seized with panic, Rush looks over his shoulder. Is this a prank? Is Patel here, fooling with him? He can make illusions this good. But the music … the magic … it’s a steady hum of Amazing Grace, not Patel’s wild string-playing demons.

  “Rush? Rush? Don’t leave me,” Jeff says.

  And Rush can’t ever leave a teammate behind. He looks back to his friend, or ghost of his friend, and gulps. “Jeff?”

  Jeff’s eyes go wide. “You can see me?”

  He looks like the Jeff from when Rush had first met him all those years ago, not like the man in the casket, and that’s what makes Rush think he’s real. Patel couldn’t fake the appearance of a man he’d never known. Rush nods, and reaches out to him, but only touches empty air.

  The ghost of Jeff reaches up and puts his hand through Rush’s. “Thanks, buddy. I’m glad I got to see you, before … I’m being called away.”

  “Don’t go,” Rush whispers.

  “I have to. It’s the last deployment, I guess.” He gives a weak smile, and shrugs. “I need something from you.”

  “Anything,” Rush whispers.

  “I need you to take care of Deanna,” Jeff’s ghost says. “She’s—”

  A voice cracks through the viewing room. “There’s my son!” All conversation around Rush dies, Rush’s shoulder blades tighten, the hum of magic goes silent, and Jeff’s ghost disappears. “Jeff,” Rush calls, but the ghost doesn’t return. Behind him he hears two sets of footsteps. One set is familiar and makes every hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He shoves his hands into the pockets of his coat and turns to face the approaching pair. A man and a woman, both very gaunt, they look to be in their early sixties, though Rush knows for the fact that the woman is in her forties.

  “Hi, Mom,” he says stiffly.

  His mother’s managed to pull herself together for the occasion. She doesn’t smell like alcohol, and her clothing is neat. About three-quarters of an inch of gray roots are showing in her dyed hair, but it’s tidy, at least.

  “So good to see you,” his mother exclaims, several octaves too loud. Her voice is rough from years of smoking. She reaches out to embrace him, and what sort of ass doesn’t hug his own mother? Rush feels all eyes in the room are on him. Tepidly he pats her back and smells cigarette smoke on her coat as her arms wrap around him.

  She pulls away and sm
iles up at him. “This is my boy, Justin!” she says. Rush’s hands ball into fists. How long has she been in town? How could Deanna invite her?

  Rush manages a nod at the man he’s never seen before. The guy has nearly white hair that is too long, but combed back with product. Rush notices a patch of gray stubble Justin missed on his chin while shaving. He’s wearing a new leather coat, but his pants and shoes look older.

  “I’m living in the same apartment as before!” his mother says. “Can you imagine that? The same exact apartment we used to have when you were a boy!” She’s still too loud, and the conversation that had begun again among the other guests goes silent once more. She turns to the man and exclaims, “He was so active, but a good boy!” She smiles at Rush. “We had good memories at that place.”

  Rush remembers spilling a bottle of whiskey on the carpet while he was playing with some toy cars and getting hit so hard his teeth rattled. He feels like she’s putting on a performance, and he’s stuck in it.

  The guy she’s with thumps Rush on the shoulder in such a familiar way it makes Rush want to snap his elbow. He remembers another boyfriend of his mother’s putting out a cigarette on his arm, and his mother saying, “Well, you shouldn’t have been a brat.”

  “I’ve heard so much about you! A Navy SEAL!” Justin speaks as loud as his mother, and Rush didn’t think it was possible, but he feels his muscles get even tighter. His eyes slide to the side. There are a few people in the viewing room he doesn’t know. They’re all staring at them, probably thinking the man is loud and an idiot, or Rush is a liar. There just aren’t that many SEALs, active or otherwise. You’re more likely to run into a professional football player than a SEAL, and it’s just not something Rush talks about. It’s … crass.

  “Bet you have some stories to tell,” Justin continues.

  Rush’s jaw gets hard. Too much of what civilians want to hear about are wrapped up with things Rush doesn’t like thinking about: his buddy Harrison’s face melted half off from magical plasma fire, bits of brain in bloody snow, Ruger’s stomach pierced by a piece of rebar, Mills, one of the two female Marines who’d gone with the team to Jotunheim, her eyes wide open in death and frosting over in the cold. She’d been so beautiful … so horrible to waste a woman like that in combat.