Elixir

by Ruth Vincent

  “Glad you’re a free woman!” said Reggie. He had bought us both bagels and coffee in celebration of the fact that the NYPD had decided to stop investigating Obadiah’s club and weren’t going to bring criminal charges against him or me. We’d set the breakfast up picnic style on his big mahogany desk.

  “Glad I am too!” I said, midmouthful. “The detective told me that Eva’s toxicology report came back with traces of an unidentified substance, so they’re considering the case drug related. It didn’t match any known narcotic, though, so basically all three of us are off the hook.”

  I hadn’t had the heart to tell Detective Foster that that “unidentified substance” they were calling a narcotic was Elixir. He would never have believed me. But I was just grateful neither I, nor Eva, nor Obadiah would be going to prison.

  “I’ve been meaning to tell you,” said Reggie, taking a swig of his coffee. “I heard some gossip from an old friend of mine that works in the forensics lab. I probably shouldn’t be telling you this, but”—­he paused, and then clearly decided to tell me anyway—­“your friend’s toxicology report caused quite a big stir.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, beginning to feel nervous.

  “Well, my buddy told me they shipped whatever this stuff is they found at Obadiah’s club off to a serious science lab for further research, because they’ve never seen anything like it before.”

  “What happened?” I asked. Now I was definitely nervous. What would they think Elixir was?

  “My buddy told me the researchers gave this stuff to some lab mice,” said Reggie, “and you’re not going to believe this, Mab, but the mice . . .” He shook his head incredulously. “They levitated!”

  “Oh my god!” I exclaimed, trying to make my face appear shocked.

  “I know, right?” said Reggie. “I mean, it’s crazy!”

  “Yeah, crazy.” I nodded. The researchers had found Elixir! And they were going to study it. This would be the first time humans had ever studied magic. My heart was beating wildly. What were they going to discover?

  “It would kind of explain how your friend fell,” Reggie said. “I mean, if someone put that stuff in her drink? Also,” he added, frowning, “maybe that’s what happened to Charlotte. Maybe that explains her fall . . . ?”

  “Yeah . . .” I said, exhaling slowly.

  “The whole thing is pretty unbelievable, though,” Reggie said. “And I thought I’d seen it all!”

  He stared out the dirty window at the midwinter sunshine, and then back at me.

  “By the way, how is your friend Eva doing?” Reggie asked, changing the subject. “Is she out of the hospital?”

  “Oh, Eva’s doing great,” I said, my face brightening. “They’re just keeping her in the hospital another day to monitor her, and then she gets to go home. They say she’s fully recovered from all her injuries. She’s having some memory loss about what happened since the accident, but I’m hoping it will get better over time. She’s excited about coming home soon.”

  We were silent for a moment, munching our respective bagel sandwiches.

  “I’m glad things are turning out okay for your friend,” Reggie said, breaking the silence. “I know you had a rough start to your P.I. work, and I’m sorry for that. I certainly never wanted an innocent bystander like your friend to be brought into it. But I have to say,” he added, finishing his coffee in a final flourishing swig, “you handled the whole thing with aplomb.”

  “Thank you, sir.”

  “Please, don’t call me ‘sir,’ or Mr. Ruggiero or any of that crap. Call me Reggie. We’re part of the same team.”

  My hand with the bagel sandwich froze midway to my mouth. He had just said we were part of the same team. Did that mean that I was a full P.I. now?

  Reggie must have seen the questioning look on my face, because he started to grin.

  “Yeah, might as well make it official.” He laughed. “Congratulations, Mabily Jones. You’re hired. You’re my new private investigator.”

  “Are you serious?”

  He gave my hand a hearty squeeze.

  “I think you’re going to be great at this job, Mab.”

  “I hope so.”

  I couldn’t help but smile at the irony. A few weeks ago I’d had no job. Now I had two: P.I., and Fairy Queen in training. Maybe the former would help me build some skills to figure out how the heck I was going to deal with the latter.

  “Want to have a peek at our next case?” Reggie’s voice pulled me back to the present moment. Shoving the crumpled bagel wrapper aside, he pulled a file from the cabinet.

  “You bet.”

  Obadiah picked me up after work. Reggie gave him his tough-­guy mug, very paternal, and then just shook his head, smiling, as Obadiah took my hand and we walked out together into the snow.

  As soon as we were out of sight of the building, Obadiah enveloped me in his arms. Pressing his hand to the small of my back, the other hand cupping my cheek, he kissed me, slow and deep.

  Snowflakes fluttered around us, but I barely registered them. All I could feel was the softness of Obadiah’s lips, the heat of his mouth, the little sigh he let out as his tongue found mine. When the kiss was over, we gazed up at each other, dazed. It was good to be free.

  I told Obadiah I had made permanent P.I. status, and he clapped his hands.

  “Now you’ll have a career to fall back on, in case being the next Fairy Queen doesn’t work out,” Obadiah said wryly. “You’re going to have a very interesting resume, Mabily Jones.”

  I sighed. “The Fairy Queen part terrifies me.”

  “As well it should.”

  We boarded the subway together. As we approached my stop, I shot a look at Obadiah. “You coming?”

  “Actually, I was hoping you’d come back to the club with me. I have a little something for you.”

  “What?” I asked, nuzzling against him.

  “Just a little something.” He smiled mysteriously.

  We got off at the Morgan Avenue stop together. The falling snow dampened the roar of the city and muffled the sounds of our feet over the sidewalk.

  I looked up to see the floater, hovering up ahead of me, just out of reach, gliding in the direction of the club, and I knew it meant my mother was watching me.

  I paused, fiddling with my bootlaces so Obadiah could walk a few paces ahead.

  “Um, hi.” I addressed the floater awkwardly.

  “Please tell the Queen I need some privacy right now,” I whispered. It wasn’t just that I knew I’d be spending tonight at Obadiah’s place . . . and there was no way I was letting my mom see that! I needed time and space right now—­space from the fairy realm, and time to figure out how I was going to solve this crisis with Elixir and the Shadow children. She may have forced me into accepting the throne—­but I would accept it on my own terms.

  The floater disappeared at my words.

  Slowly, I smiled. She’d honored my request at least. It was a start.

  I walked quickly ahead to join Obadiah on the street corner and took his hand.

  As we tromped along the snowy sidewalks, Obadiah turned to me.

  “There’s something I wanted to tell you, Mab.”

  “Yes?” I asked, breathless.

  “I think I’m going to shut down my Elixir business, at least for a while.”

  “Obadiah, it’s not your fault, what the Queen has done to those children. It was her choice to do that. It’s not because you took Elixir.”

  “I know that,” he said with a sigh, “but still. If I take more Elixir, she’ll use it as an excuse to take more children. So I’ve decided. I’m calling it quits. I’ll keep the club open, as a meeting place, but no more magic bootlegging.”

  I looked at him, the snowflakes falling on his resolute face. I’d have been lying if I didn’t say I was relieved.
And yet part of me felt wistful too at the thought of there being no more magic in the human world.

  “What about all the ­people you helped?”

  “I don’t know if I helped anyone. Look what happened to kids like Charley,” he said.

  “But all that magic you gave to ­people, it did good stuff too,” I countered. “You gave ­people power—­even if it was only temporary. You gave them possibility. You definitely gave that to me,” I added quietly.

  Obadiah cocked his head to the side, considering.

  “It’s kind of you to say that. But still . . .” He sighed. “I think it’s time to let humans handle their problems the old-­fashioned way: with ingenuity, and creativity, and just sheer, dumb determination. And that means all humans,” he added, “including me.”

  “You’re not going to drink Elixir anymore?”

  He shook his head. “Nope. Any more magic I do, I’m going to make sure it comes from inside me from now on, instead of from the outside.”

  I squeezed his hand.

  “Well, I think you’re pretty brave.”

  “A wise girl once said to me that you shouldn’t rely on anything outside yourself to do magic.” He smiled at me. “That magic should come from within.”

  We turned the corner. Obadiah’s whitewashed brick building loomed in the distance amidst the other old warehouses on the snow-­covered street. As we approached, my good mood began to dissipate. I’d always love this place, but I couldn’t go there without thinking of everything that was still wrong, even if Eva was going to recover: all the Queen’s captive children in a death-­like sleep in their cocoons; my own savage, broken Shadow; even poor Charlotte, a broken body in a morgue half a globe away.

  I couldn’t hide out here in the human world forever, playing Nancy Drew at work with Reggie and dancing to swing bands with vampires and werewolves. Someday, and soon, I had to go back to the Vale. I had to do something to fix this mess. The problem was—­I hadn’t figured out what yet.

  “You alright, Mab?” Obadiah asked, interrupting my thoughts. He must have seen the changed expression on my face.

  “Yeah, I’m fine,” I said quickly, but he raised one eyebrow, unconvinced.

  “We’re way past the point of lying to one another, love.”

  I smiled sheepishly.

  “You know I can’t stay here forever?” I said to him. “I have to do something to help those kids! I’m stalling if all I do is live my human life, working for Reggie and hanging out with you and Eva. I have to go back.”

  He squeezed my hand.

  “We have to go back,” he said.

  When I looked up at him, he added, “Don’t think this is just your fight.”

  I wrapped my arms around him, and he kissed me on the top of the head. We walked up the steps of his club together, holding hands.

  When we got to the door, Obadiah stopped short.

  “That’s strange.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “The lights are on.” He pointed to a glowing strip beneath the heavy blackout shades. “I could have sworn I turned them off when I left.”

  I could hear music coming from inside, the sound audible in the quiet street. It was the old swing band that I’d heard the other night.

  “What the hell?” Obadiah’s brow furrowed. “The club is closed. Did someone break in?”

  All the shades were drawn, but there were clearly ­people inside. We could hear not just the lively music, but sounds of voices calling out to each other and laughing, glasses clinking and the thump-­thump of dancing feet.

  Obadiah raised an eyebrow.

  “Well, this is unexpected,” he said. “By the way, this is not the surprise I was talking about. I was just planning on cooking you a candlelight dinner in the back of the shop. I don’t know anything about this, who is inside or how they got in. You might want to wait out here, Mab. I’ll go in and deal with this, make sure it’s nothing dangerous.”

  Jangling his keys, he opened the door.

  As he opened it, I could see that the room was packed—­Sanguinari and Wolfmen, Elves and Animalia, all the usual customers, not even bothering to disguise themselves, just talking and dancing and laughing. When a few of them turned around and saw us, they shouted “Surprise!” as if they’d been planning this all along. Obadiah shook his head, chuckling.

  “And here I was worried that someone had broken into my place!”

  “Sorry, boss,” said Reuben, stepping forward. “They couldn’t wait. I didn’t know where you’d gone off to—­so I opened the place back up. So, um . . . surprise?” He grinned.

  Obadiah rolled his eyes. “You certainly gave us a good scare.”

  Reuben looked sheepish. “The place isn’t the same without you, though.”

  I saw various members of the crowd—­Elves and Wolfmen and Sanguinari—­nod solemnly at that.

  The band struck up again, and everyone began to dance.

  Obadiah turned to Reuben. “I’m afraid you all won’t be so fond of me anymore when I tell you what I’m proposing to do.”

  “Shut down your Elixir business?” said Reuben. “I heard you two talking when you were coming up the sidewalk. Wolf hearing.” He shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t think any of us care about that. That’s not the reason we come here.”

  A few Sanguinari who were standing within earshot nodded. I noticed they were looking at me, as well as Obadiah, and I blushed, feeling the attention of so many eyes. Why were they staring at me?

  An old Sanguinari stepped forward from their group.

  “Princess,” he said, bowing and kissing my hand.

  My heart went into my mouth.

  They knew. They knew I was the Queen’s daughter. The news must have spread fast. Were they angry? Were they going to hurt me? If this crowd ambushed me now, even Obadiah couldn’t keep me safe.

  And yet the faces in the group around us were smiling.

  They all knew. But it didn’t seem to bother them.

  “I thought you guys wanted to kill me,” I said, stunned.

  “We did,” the old Sanguinari who’d kissed my hand said. “A few of us even tried, years ago,” he added, and I saw the Sanguinari gentleman beside him nod, as did Reuben.

  I shifted uncomfortably.

  “So what changed?”

  “You,” Reuben said. “Obadiah talks a lot about you, and, well, you seem like a good sort, Mabily. If you can work with us, we can work with you.”

  “I will,” I said. As I looked out over the crowd I didn’t feel nervous anymore.

  The Sanguinari began to talk amongst themselves, and Reuben wandered back to the bar. I turned to Obadiah, leaning in so he could hear me over the music.

  “When I take over the throne,” I said, “I’m going to make the Vale a democracy again. No more mother-­to-­daughter Fairy Queens. All the fairies and Elves and Wolfmen and Sanguinari and supernaturals of every sort—­they can vote me out, if they want to.”

  Obadiah’s breath tickled my ear as he leaned in to whisper, “You know they probably will vote you out, right?”

  “I know,” I said to him. “But if I end up as nothing more than a human, is that such a bad thing?”

  “Not for me.” He smiled.

  The song changed and everyone began to dance again. I saw Sanguinari and Wolfmen and Elves clinking goblets, but I noted the liquid inside was champagne, not Elixir.

  My merriment felt mixed. I could never forget that room of children, their small, silent faces—­I never would forget. But I wasn’t stalling—­I was just waiting until I had a plan worked out to help them.

  The band struck up again.

  Obadiah tugged my hand.

  “What?” I asked.

  “You can get back to solving all the world’s problems tomorrow morning,” he said, empa
thy in his eyes. “We both can. But this is a good song.” He gestured towards the dance floor. “Shall we?”

  We joined the whirl of dancers as the band played its brassy Lindy Hop. He spun me round and round, till I fell, dizzy and laughing, into his arms. Right now, planning for the future could wait. In this moment, there was only the dance, and I felt happy to be alive . . . happy to be human.

  Acknowledgments

  Writing is a paradox: it is the most solitary of endeavors—­yet you cannot do it alone. I will always be grateful for the encouragement, support, and dedication of the following ­people, without whom this book simply wouldn’t exist:

  My editor, Rebecca Lucash—­thank you for taking a chance on a first-­time author, for your genius editorial suggestions, and for always being such a joy to work with at every stage of the process. Thank you as well to the whole team at Voyager Impulse—­I may not know all your names, but I so appreciate all your efforts.

  My agent, Jennifer Udden—­thank you for being my champion and for always fighting the good fight. I feel very fortunate to have such a warm and wise guide as I begin my career.

  My critique partners: author Amy Boyles and Michelle Dayton—­thank you for all the time and energy you’ve devoted to my stories; your feedback has made them so much stronger. It’s always a delight to read your writing.

  All the members of LIRW, my Long Island RWA chapter—­thank you for your enthusiastic support, your savvy insights, your mentorship, and most of all your friendship—­you guys are my tribe!

  The other three members of the fantastic four: authors Mia Hopkins, Sienna Snow, and Susan O’Connell—­from the moment we met in line at our first RWA Nationals, through all of our ups and downs along the publishing path, you gals make this journey so much more fun!

  A big thank you to Detective Brent Hopkins of the LAPD, for answering my many questions about police procedure with such patience and good humor!

  The real Obadiah Savage—­thank you for generously letting me borrow your awesome name for my character! That said, this is a work of fiction, etc . . . etc . . . —­you are not a bootlegger of fairy Elixir . . . as far as we know . . .