The Real Folktale Blues (Beyond Ever After #1)

by Random Jordan

  But what people deserve and what people get are almost always different. Charming was proof of that.

  “The place where you need to take the package is on the parchment. You’ll enjoy the delivery, I am sure.”

  He laughed and I just kept walking right past the naked guards, with my jaw locked to keep from running back up to him and forcing him to tell me exactly what the fey he was getting me into.

  I had more than enough to deal with on my plate now. My former charge, my bounty head, some crazy package delivery, into a territory I wasn’t even supposed to enter. If only every visit with Charming was this much fun.

  Oh wait… it usually was.

  “Happy ever after, Red.” Charming called to me.

  “I don’t believe in happy endings, Charming.” I replied coldly as I reached past the large doors.

  “Neither do I, darling. Neither do I.” He laughed till I heard the chamber doors close again.

  I was gone from his palace as quickly as I had trudged into it, but not quickly enough.

  That Charming Bastard of a Tsar.

  He would be the death of me someday.

  Two

  Heart of Gold

  Legends were where it all started. Not just for Gabbi, my bounty head, and myself; but everywhere. Most of the kingdoms and queendoms and massive cities were built and continued around the stories and chronicles of events that get recorded down as what are called ‘legends’.

  Every couple of years or so a few legends would be released. How they come about or in what way, I couldn’t honestly tell you, just that it happens. They weren’t just written chronicles of some adventure someone did in the world. Each named or titled person in the legend is also given power.

  So long as someone knows the legend other than those it was about, the person in the legend will not age unless they so choose. They could die, but essentially baring accidents a ‘legendary’ could potentially live forever.

  I happen to be one of those legendaries. And so is my bounty head, Gabbi Fowld. In fact, we were both in the same legend together.

  A legend I’d much sooner forget than tell.

  Off the mountain path which I had taken from Charming’s castle, I caught her distinctive and purposely left tracks. She liked to leave me large wolf prints whenever she could. It was her regular joke since she was supposed to be a big wolf; at least that was part of her title.

  So I followed the tracks set in to the trail known as the Pixie Path. It was less than a few hours of travel along the road that could outshine any rainbow and out-glitter any pixie before I came to a sight that was in no way as aesthetically pleasing.

  Among the iridescent dust of the road were heavy spatters of blood, as if someone dumped buckets full of sticky scarlet paint in as many places as they could. Even the closest willow tree to the road had clear signs of blood colored on the hanging leaves. There was a body absent of a head in the distance. I was actually surprised there weren’t more bodies that I could see.

  A short-haired person looked at me wide-eyed before darting over. “Sir?”

  The boy clearly addressed me. If it hadn’t been for the low croaky basso voice I would have thought the boy to be a girl with such soft features, fair hair and brilliant sea colored eyes.

  “It’s not sir.” I simply reprimanded him with a curt tone. No one ever expects a female to be traveling alone, even on a main road like this one.

  “Oh, I’m sorry then.” He certainly didn’t sound even remotely sorry, but what was I supposed to say? Besides it irked me when he added, as if trying to wound me, “Ma’am.”

  I figured I would just get straight to the topic I wanted to discuss. “How well did your guard fair? Any survive?”

  The boy was dressed in a light military outfit of mostly spic-and-span fine silks of dark royal purple. It was the sign that he was a militia member of Tsar Charming. Only that man would have all his soldiers dressed in something as fine and expensive as silk. What really gave the blond boy away as a militia was the tag of the soldier’s name just over his heart; dark silver with pearly writing that read ‘Roberts’.

  Roberts glanced at me with eyebrows furrowed in confusion. Yep, he definitely had no clue about me. Thank the faeries for that one. “Uh…” he stuttered, “Just one survivor. But… uh…” second stutter, damn this boy must be fresh into the slaughter-house, “Who are you?”

  I opened my mouth to explain; finally glad someone didn’t know me. Being famous really tore into me.

  Unfortunately, I never got a single word out before one fey of a booming voice broke the sound barrier around me. “Once upon my time! Red!”

  A salt and paprika haired woman with her hair jumbled into a single braid down her back smiled and jogged over to the newbie and me. She was wearing a similar uniform to Roberts, just with more shiny knobs on it.

  I glanced back at the fresh meat in front of me and sighed. I could already see the look of recognition and admiration in his eyes. I swear, you end up in one legend and suddenly you are some kind of god. It was just ridiculous.

  “Why?”

  “I was just…” The older officer hesitated in confusion. “Wait. What?”

  “Why did you call me Red?” I asked more precisely.

  “I- I am not aware of your actual name. I assumed everyone called you that. The Tsar even left specific orders to call you that and to be expecting you.” The redhead, whose silver tag read ‘Bonny’, at least looked apologetic, unlike her baby officer.

  “Gnidori, it’s Gnidori.” I looked back and forward between Roberts and Bonny to make sure they both got it. There is a former prince somewhere who will die by my hand sometime.

  “Right. Well, it is good to have you helping us out Gnidori.”

  “Thanks. Now where is the survivor? I’d like to get my information from the source.”

  They both looked at me warily. I didn’t want to have to talk much longer with two people who were staring at me like I was either dinner or a god. Yeah, it could go either way.

  “Yes, of course.” The older officer finally spoke after a decent dollop of silence. She elbowed the younger officer to life. Once he got his groan out of the way, he jumped statue stiff, glanced at me, and then Bonny before finally turning toward the direction of the beheaded body.

  “W-walk this way.” He whispered.

  I wasn’t much of a follower, so I was walking next to him within moments and moving far more relaxed and less rigid than he was. He only tensed up more when he noticed I was keeping pace with his increasing speed.

  We moved down the trail to a brick tower just off the sparkly beaten path. The beheaded body I had seen earlier was leaning against the tower wall. No head in sight. I stopped in front of the tower entrance just about the same time as the boy soldier did.

  “He’s up…” The soldier paused looking over the tower. “…here.”

  At least he actually finished his sentence before dashing off into the circular tower that looked like a rabid Oni mauled it. I didn’t run in after him.

  Something happened, emphasis on the past tense. And even if someone were still in the tower causing trouble, they would need to be able to fly or come past me to get away. I figured looking around would be more beneficial.

  I gripped on the entrance to the tower where a single set of claw marks rested. They were warm, which wasn’t odd with an attack from Gabbi; but the pulsing hum and paradoxical glow of darkness from the claw marks was.

  The most unusual thing was the thick yellow smoke drifting all around the first floor of the tower, just lingering over my head. My short stature actually came in handy for once.

  I glided up the stairs with ease. It felt like I was following the yellow smoke up the steps. Except the mustard smoke was flowing down, rather than out into the open sky above the tower.

  Did I fall through the looking-glass?

  Smoke did not flow this way or look that color.

  The top of the tower was cramped, especially with t
he three dead bodies and the curls of yellow smoke puffing around like there was an invisible train somewhere. I had to duck down as soon as I reached the top of the steps to even see anything.

  Roberts was knelt over one of the bodies checking him or her. These bodies were different. Each still had their head. That was a clear sign it wasn’t Gabbi. Beheading was her favorite thing.

  Yeah I know, how twisted can she be, if taking people’s heads off is her favorite pastime.

  I really wish I knew. She hadn’t always been that messed up.

  Honestly, with what was left of the corpses, you could hardly call them bodies. They were carcasses. They were bloody, torn up, guts open, carcasses. Their rib cages were bent apart so fiercely I could see everything in their chest cavity.

  It brings a whole new meaning to baring all your heart. Their hearts were certainly bare and visible.

  Smoke was pouring out of the heart of the body in the middle of the three. And when I say pouring out, I mean like a waterfall pouring upwards. No wonder the smoke was so thick. It wouldn’t be long before the entire tower was consumed in the mustard colored fumes.

  I covered my mouth. Just in case I was inhaling something seriously dangerous. I don’t care how much really messed up things anyone sees. The moment I saw yellow gas streaming out of a dead person’s heart with body pieces all over the place, I knew three things.

  One, there was some serious magic going on.

  Two, this wasn’t the work of Gabbi.

  Three and worst of all, I wanted to puke so badly I was sure I could fill all three carcass’ chest cavities.

  Luckily soldier boy beat me to it. And honestly, this is one of the things I was glad to not be the leader or follower on.

  After he finished adding to the interior decoration of the tower top he turned to look at me, his face still empty of any color and his mouth twisted in pain. He wiped across his lips with the crook of his elbow and stood up. I had to look away from him while forcing my stomach contents back down as best as I could.

  “What… in the seven and seven lands happened? We were gone… minutes…How?” He didn’t manage to finish as he turned away from me and spewed whatever was left in his stomach. I was thankful for his change of direction.

  I sidled up next to Roberts awkwardly to avoid the smoke and mess he made before bending down on my knees. He lowered down with me while I pulled out one of my hatchets. I tried not to take in the acrid smell of the soldier’s upturned stomach contents; good thing it wasn’t too strong over all the blood and the sickly sweet scent of the smoke, reminding me of brimstone.

  After swallowing to make sure nothing came up, I leaned over the corpse pouring smoke out and brought the blade of my cleaver against the heart. I cut around the pumping organ and pulled it out so it sat on the axe blade like I was serving it up to replace the lost food Roberts expunged.

  The heart looked average, nothing wrong with it. Yet it was pulsing and pumping as if the owner still needed blood. Two slits were cut into it. One slit gushed fumes out while the other sucked air in with each beat made. At the height of each beat the slit drawing in air opened wide enough to be able to see into the center of the heart.

  “What? What is that?” Roberts asked, still with his hands over one of the bodies. I had a feeling he knew one of the two guards watching the witness.

  “It’s a heart.” I said, still a little stunned with my lower lip hung even lower. I shook my head. “Not just a heart though; something in the heart is producing these fumes.”

  He looked at me like I would have looked at myself if someone told me what I had just said, like they were crazy. Then he just turned back to the corpse he had been focused on since I walked up the steps.

  I set the heart down and tucked my axe away.

  “Midnight Magic.” I cursed. “This wasn’t Gabbi. This was something else entirely.”

  “What do you mean? What… happened here?” Soldier boy asked while I laid my hands over the slit not pumping out lemon fumes.

  “People died. The magic way.” I explained poorly before ripping the heart open.

  A tiny lemon-and-cream-colored fox inside the heart yawned up at me. The fox blinked its eyes before they closed into slits again.

  I blinked back.

  I blinked a few more times. Then I glanced around.

  I fell through the looking-glass. I must have. This wasn’t normal. This wasn’t even odd. This was fox-is-born-from-a-human-heart messed up. “What the flying fey! This doesn’t make any sense.”

  The fox blinked at me again, and stretched its teeny front paws out, exploding with cuteness. It had probably been cramped in that tiny… human… heart…

  “What. The. Fey.” I cursed again, more slowly. I managed to draw the attention of Roberts. He lost the bottom half of his jaw to the floor when he saw the fox. The fox just looked over at him and yawned again. Tired, cute, little bastard.

  “Um… Miss Gnidori… where… did that come from?” He asked, trying to steal back his jaw from the floor.

  “The heart. I hope.”

  “Um… Miss Gnidori…how…“

  “Don’t even bother asking me. I’m still trying to figure out how it fit in there.” I explained before he could even say anything else. We both fell silent for a moment.

  The fox smiled up at me with a wicked vulpine smirk. If anyone ever thought chestshire cats had crazy grins they clearly hadn’t ever seen a fox smile.

  The shock of the fox had thrown me off so badly that I didn’t even notice the smoke had stopped the moment the heart had been opened up.

  The smoke couldn’t have come from the fox. Right?

  “Um… Miss Gnidori… did that smoke come from…” He started to ask like he was reading my mind.

  “Yeah. Yeah.”

  “Um… how… uh…” He shook his head and gave up saying anything else. I had to give it to Roberts; he was doing about as well as I was considering a fox was just born from a heart that had been pumping out brimstone smelling gas.

  The fox uncurled its fluffy golden tipped tail, which had to have been about even in size with the rest of its body. It stood up and gazed at me with silver-blue eyes and blinked again.

  The whole heart-born fox couldn’t have been bigger than my fist. No matter how much I looked at the vulpine creature, I couldn’t understand it.

  “Roberts.” I began. The fox reached out and licked my nearest gloved finger.

  “Ma’am?” He managed to sputter out.

  “Were there any other victims with heads and opened cavities like this anywhere else?” I asked while the fox tried to move closer to my hands, but just fell over.

  “Um… no.” He said, still in a haze. Then his blue eyes lit up and he looked at me rather than the fox. “No, actually, these three are the only bodies with heads in the whole scene. And… uh… looking like this.”

  “Figures.” I mumbled.

  The fox picked itself back up and managed to move a few steps closer to my hands. It licked me a few more times.

  I finally looked over at Roberts. His hands were covered in guts and blood; even his name tag was covered in some of it now too. The body he was kneeled over had remnants of the same indigo silk uniform but anything else could not be discernible from the gore.

  “Did you know one of the people watching the survivor?” I asked nodding down at his hands and chest. The fox continued to lick away the blood on the tips of my gloves. I was unsure if it should be doing such a thing.

  “Yes, Ashley. We joined together.” The blond soldier explained with such emptiness to the words. I looked up at his face. His eyes were watering, but no tears.

  “Girlfriend?”

  “No. Uh…” I could tell he was thinking about it. “Close friend.”

  Faerie Fudge!

  I could practically see it. They were good friends. He liked her. She wanted to join the guard; he joined to be with her. Now he had years to serve without the girl whom had been the reason for him even
being there.

  “Ah.” I nodded in recognition before turning to look back at the lemon and cream fuzz ball.

  “What am I going to do with you?” I sighed.

  The fox cried in response, sounding like a couple of small bells ringing at once, and smiled up at me.

  I scooped up the tiny fox with both of my scarlet-gloved hands and lifted it to my face. It licked my nose under the shadow of my hood and let out a tiny yawning cry.

  Stupid cute fox.

  “Ma’am?” The soldier boy asked.

  I glanced over to see him staring back at the body he had been trying to put back together earlier. At the same time I tucked the fox under my cape, slipping it into one of my massive cargo pockets. The heart-born fox fit perfectly and poked its head and paws out slightly.

  “Soldier?” I responded.

  “I’ll kill the monster that did this.” He stated plainly. I could see the fury in his eyes and the single tear rivers down each side of his cheeks.

  “I wish you could kid. It’d make my job easier.” I sighed again and laid a hand on his shoulder. I heard the fox let out another yawning cry and then felt it settle down in my pocket.

  “I will.”

  “Yeah. Maybe.”

  “No. I will.” He reassured me. Not that I needed it.

  “Yeah, I know.”

  What else was I supposed to say? The guy just lost the girl that he liked enough to go into the militia for. I could never give that kind of dedication to someone. Sure there were a lot of people dead around us but as far as he was concerned she was the only one that mattered. She was the reason he threw up. He knew there was some crazy stuff going on. But that didn’t matter. She died; he wanted revenge.

  I envied the soldier. I only knew two things for sure and neither involved revenge.

  One: Gabbi didn’t do any of this here.

  And Two: I now had a golden fox in my pocket.

  What can I say? I follow smoke trails and brick crumbs and don’t find my way home. Instead I find a fox of gold in a heart.

  I really need a new job.

  Three