by Sophie Avett
Elsa turned her cheek to the dwarf and wandered to the next stall. Marshall exchanged a short diplomatic look with the fey, and then bared his fangs at a were-tiger cub clamped around his leg—scaring the little brat to scurry beneath his mother’s skirts. Dusting invisible specks off his jacket, he followed Elsa to a booth packed to bursting with such an odd assortment of arcane knick-knacks, toys, and artifacts, it put Elsa’s dark emporium of crazy to shame.
Naga. Half-woman, half-snake serpentine demon. Pale sea-foam skin. She slithered from behind the stall, a violet, geisha-looking top wrapped around her lithe, muscled upper body. Jet black hair piled on top of her head in a neat knot, held in place by two sharp sticks. Firelight licked across the scales of her lower half as thousands of tiny bones contracted and pulled, the tail scrunching like an accordion as she slithered to their side, arms braced at her back.
“Madame Kikiyo, at your service.” Her treasures sparkled off of her jet black eyes. “What is your desire, witch?”
“Understand, naga, you cannot swindle me. Nor can I be held in thrall. You attempt to do so at your own peril.” Elsa punctuated her matter-of-fact statement with a wicked chomp through the apple’s core.
Sable eyes took an unnatural sheen. “Your desires, witch?”
He should watch the crowd. Madame Mari could be right next to them and neither one of them would know. Well, perhaps Elsa would know. Marshall studied the exchange of the two women, absentmindedly nibbling at the apple. Butter toffee, crisp green apples, and caramel. Sticky and tart, velvety and sweet. Crunchy. It lent sugar to the tension strumming between the two merchants as they openly appraised one another.
She was a shop owner, his little witch. Certainly, she had some skills bargaining and siphoning out those who would broker a shady deal, but the longer he held the naga’s gaze, the more he felt like there was more to it. The utter confidence and calm draped across Elsa’s shoulders suggested her deductions went beyond the realm of good intuition.
His gaze lingered on the amulet. What is she?
Finally, Elsa seemed to come to the conclusion that Madame Kikiyo was worth doing business with and edged closer to the booth, sharp eyes assessing every nook and cranny of the caravan. “I am looking for a charm with a protection ward I can…reverse.”
“Reverse?” The naga slithered to Elsa’s side, and Marshall’s eyes narrowed into slits on the snake, his fangs tickling the edge of his tongue. “What do you seek to expel?”
Thick red eyelashes fluttered as Elsa slanted an unreadable look at the naga. “Unseelie.”
Unseelie? Marshall studied a glass display box of “rare” charms nestled between a dusty, old Persian lamp and a tomb marked Grimm.
“I believe I may have something.” Madame Kikiyo slipped between a crack in the shelves. The space was narrow, but her lithe body worked into the seam like glittering ooze. Violet silk lapels fluttered, snapping around the solid wood edge of a shelf, and finally disappeared, leaving them to stand alone.
Marshall peered into the crack. “She’s…gone?”
“Hardly, vampire. Naga are territorial creatures. Rest assured, she is watching us even now.”
The vampire reached for her and she ducked beneath a shimmering gold phoenix caged in silver and fingered a straw voodoo idol. “Why don’t you Christmas shop, vampire?”
“My family is very wealthy and similarly, very dysfunctional. Christmas and the joy of presents has never been one of our more pressing concerns. And still isn’t. Why do you ask? Better still, why do you Christmas shop? I find it difficult to believe that you place faith in this ridiculous pagan holiday.”
“I don’t. My people celebrate Yule in their own way. They’re hardly the sort to indulge in Christmas frivolity, nor would my people ever heed any of the religious tones.” Elsa offered him a good natured shrug. “And yet, I see no harm in exchanging trinkets and good company.”
He straightened, bracing his arms behind his back. “Ms. Karr, I hardly find fault with exchanging trinkets and good company. My point of annoyance with this holiday comes from the fact that regardless of what was intended when the holiday was adopted into Christianity, it has become nothing more than a waste of time and resources. It’s built on a false premise. This idea of good will toward your fellow man. Magic and wonder. The end of world hunger for one day of the year. False hope, all of it. It’s all tactless, hypocritical rubbish.”
“False hope? Hypocritical?” She lifted her gaze at that, her eyes bright with rising challenge, and anchored her hand on her hip. “How can the end of world hunger for one day of the year, whether it is literal or not, be worthy of such scornful words?”
“Because, Ms. Karr,” he came to stand before his witch, “the simple fact is, more starving people live in countries that have food surpluses rather than deficits. More people go hungry now than twenty years ago. Why? Because food is a multi-billion dollar industry. Jesus Christ was born in the spring, Santa Claus drinks Coca Cola, and Hallmark’s stock goes up during the holiday season. It is nothing but brilliant marketing and greed. Simple and pure greed.”
“Perhaps you are right. But what if you are wrong?” Her eyes shifted with an emotion he couldn’t name, and then she dropped her attention to a row of jarred hearts. “What if Christmas can change?”
Her words carried weight he couldn’t understand. It seemed like such a naïve sentiment. So out of place coming from his shrewd little landlord. After he had found his release on the balcony, they had stood entwined. For how long, he didn’t know. She’d held him, stroking his head. But she did not offer comfort. No false or empty words of “Everything is going to be all right.” Just a quiet, steady arm to lean on as he recovered his sense and tucked his ungainly emotions back into their cage.
They’d sent his work back to his room and returned the violin with a note to bill him for the cracked bow, and continued down the lonely halls in a companionable silence. Wandering toward one another, and then apart. Only to drift together again as they wove through the silent white trees decorating the hall to the market. As per usual, it had taken Elsa some time to acclimate to the crowd. Their fingers brushing, entwining. Lingering contact. As he navigated them through pockets of monsters so she could lead him from stall to stall. He hadn’t even thought to speak until her stomach had rumbled.
His mind was quiet, blissfully quiet. Even now. Nothing of the nightmares remained at the forefront, though he knew very well they would be waiting for him when he closed his eyes at dawn. They always were. But for now, he was content to edge closer to the witch, to the lovely sculpture of woman, magic, and earth. His mind was taken with images of slipping his hand beneath her skirt—fingers pushing aside lace panties while she licked at the butter toffee apple like a lollipop.
“Vampire,” she spoke, though she continued her leisurely perusal, “you look…”
“Hungry,” he finished, his mouth wet with caramel. He tore his eyes from her neck, molding his chest to her back. She melted as he slipped an arm around her waist. Painting little circles on his inner wrist.
“I thought you didn’t like sweets.”
“I don’t.” He caught their reflections in a broad sword twirling above a dilapidated pumpkin vine carriage wheel. Marshall unbraided his innate glamour enough to appear behind the witch’s back. “But you do seem to make them bearable.”
Looking back over her shoulder, her eyes were bright with mirth, with lust, and with something else. Something mysterious. Something that looked like joy, but it couldn’t be. It couldn’t be anything but the paradox that was Elsa. And then, she covered his mouth with hers. A kiss so freely given, his eyes fell closed as he gloried in it.
Desire lifted and swirled around them in a red shimmer. He let it wash over him. Drinking deeply from the well, he savored the sensation of caramel gliding across their lips. Melding their mouths. Sugar, sighs, and serenity. And for the first time in his miserable soul’s existence, he felt the season touch its warm fingers to his chest.
He felt it seep through the thick wool of his coat and the iron brace across his heart. Somewhere very, very far away—at least right now—a tiny girlish squeal of joy mingled with the faint jingle of bells. Sounds and music collided, lending a festive soundtrack to the ebb and flow of life. And he was alive. Wholly and truly alive.
Elsa tore her mouth from his, a harsh curse sweetening the air as she dropped her brow against his chin. “You will kill us both.”
A charming, smart-assed remark was all ready for launch, poised on the tip of his tongue. He swallowed it. Black shiny moon wood stole his gaze. It was a violin. Key shaped, solid but darkened with minor scratches from age. Sweet-sounding, lingering notes wafted up from the depths of Marshall’s memory.
“What is it, vampire?”
He wet his lips. “Nothing.” He fingered the edge of the gleaming, elegant bow, careful not to touch the black centaur hair. “I just…I had a violin just like this once.”
Elsa straightened with interest. “Really?”
The sweet heavenly lullaby of Scheherazade’s melody slipped through his thoughts. Hours and hours spent practicing, rifling through his mind like the pages of a dusty old book. “When I was a child. It was the only gift he ever gave me.”
“Who?”
“My…father.”
That Christmas morning rose from the ashes of his mind. He had not thought about that in such a long time. He’d been a small boy. Five, maybe. He remembered it as clearly as if it was yesterday. Alone in the parlor, standing against the jalousie windows, Henry Ansley pulled the bow across the keynote. A true devil playing the violin to hell and high heavens, the stars and the fire roaring in the hearth his only audience. Well, almost…
As a child, Marshall had taken to watching his father play, sometimes from dawn till dusk. It was the only time his father didn’t scare him. And even then, as Henry Ansley sawed the wand across the gleaming black strings, his eyes closed, reading music only he could see, he was still an imposing figure. That Christmas, his father had peeled into the end of the Korsakov’s Scheherazade, and hidden near the gargoyle idols, Marshall had held his breath, his glamour slipping from his control. Forgotten. The music came to a grinding halt and Henry had nailed Marshall to the wall with his sharp gaze.
Marshall’s mouth quirked as he stifled a ridiculous urge to chuckle, thinking back to the gangly boy hanging upside down from the shadows. With nothing more than a brow knitted with fear and a sheepish grin. They’d stood—well, he was hanging—like that for a while, and then Henry Ansley had let out a heavy sigh and said, “Well, let’s not wait for the bitches to rise, imp. Come and learn how to play a violin like a proper devil.”
“It is never too late to reclaim a piece of your childhood, sir vampire.” The naga slithered to his side, perfuming the air with ginger and cherry blossoms. Dust. And the acrid undercurrent of bile.
Marshall straightened, pocketing his hand. “I’m quite content to leave my childhood in the past, Madame Kikiyo, but thank you for the gracious offer.”
Candlelight caught the edge of her wicked black nails. She held a small velvet black box demurely between her slender fingers. “Are you sure?”
Lust. It was strong. Unfamiliar. It worked its inky purple fingertips through his veins and his throat worked. “Ms. Karr… Ms. Karr?” He frowned. “Elsa?”
Elsa was poised near a rack of clothing hanging on the far end of the caravan. Having apparently finished her apple, she pulled a white frock from the tangled mess of bohemian fabric. She opened the simple skirt as if she could see her very future emblazoned upon the shimmering white cotton. Sleeveless, full skirt. Simple, elegant, and airy. It was nothing like the decadent Sinister Stitches she’d been wearing for the last two days.
Really? He tilted his head with surprise, tossing the butter-toffee apple in a nearby wastebarrel. He closed the distance between them and slipped an arm around her waist. Pressing his mouth to her ear, he whispered, “Do you want it?”
Nothing. She stood like stone, staring at the fabric in silence, and for a moment Marshall wondered whether she’d heard him at all. He pulled back enough to study her stricken expression. Completely taken with the dress, blood red and sooty green smoke crystallized in the depths of her murky eyes, making them glow with desire and something else. The hairs on the back of his neck lifted with warning.
“Elsa?” He flashed his fangs at the naga.
Madame Kikiyo anchored a hand on her hip. “It was not me.”
Elsa blinked rapidly, seeming to come to. She glanced back at the vampire as if she was surprised to find him so near. She nodded at the small box in the naga’s hands. “Did you find something?”
Madame Kikiyo opened the box, revealing a tiny charm braced on plush satin. “Alexander the Great’s ring of Sun and Stars. It was cut from his finger after his body was brought back to Macedonia. It will ward your Unseelie.”
Elsa’s sharp assessment flickered across the ring. “How much, naga?”
Her thin lips screwed into a smile. “I am hardly out of your rubies and rations, girl. I ask only a paltry sum. Your firstborn or five hundred pounds.”
Oh, just that, then… Marshall’s hand covered Elsa’s pelvis possessively. His gaze fell to a random box of assorted charms. So many. They glistened in the ramshackle shoebox like glittering snakes. He pointed. “I want that box of charms.”
Elsa and the naga’s haggling drew to a halt. Both women slanted him confused looks. Marshall plucked his wallet out of his back pocket. He slipped out a silver card emblazoned with the Mirage Agency’s logo, extending it to Madame Kikiyo. “All of them.” She licked her lips hungrily, reaching out, apparently all too happy to make the deal, but he hauled the plastic out of reach at the last minute. “And would you please give us another moment of privacy.”
The naga’s gaze flitted back and forth between the witch and the vampire before she accepted the card and disappeared beneath another rock. Marshall found Elsa looking at him with interest, waiting, it seemed, for the explanation. He glanced at the dress she’d abandoned on the rack, all but disappeared within the knot of color except for a tiny triangle of white fabric.
He brushed the curve of her naked arm with the backs of his knuckles. “Do you like the dress, Ms. Karr?”
Her pink tongue darted across her glossy red lips. “It is a pretty dress.”
“Do you want it, Elsa?” Their breaths mingled. Moist and sweet with kisses and caramel. “Would you like to wear it to the ball tonight?”
“Ball?” She pulled back. “We are going to a ball?”
He plucked the flier he’d swiped from the stand next to the candy apple counter out of his pocket. She scanned the page and then pulled at the petal skirt. “I thought the purpose of having me wear these clothes in the first place was to garner Madame Mari’s attention?”
Marshall stilled for a moment, unsure of how he should register her response. On the one hand, she was the only one acting like an adult or making any bloody sense. The entire point of her magic makeover had been to dress his weapon in an attractive wrapper, one he hoped would still act as a lure. On the other hand, the muscles and tendons in his calves flexed as he fought the urge to ease away, as if distance would ebb the burn of rejection.
“Regardless, I have another matter I would like to discuss with you, vampire. The ring,” she glanced at the small velvet box, though his gaze stayed riveted to her face, “I don’t…” Her cheeks colored and sweat beaded on her temple. Her spine went a few inches too straight for his comfort. “I would like to ask for a loan.”
“A loan?” he parroted. His gaze flitted to the bauble resting near the violin. “For the charm?”
She nodded. Jerky. Stiff. Prideful. And yet…
Marshall edged back and raked his eyes from bow to Mary Janes. Whispers of warning sparked down his collar, his stomach riling with unease. He tried to hold the uncomfortable suspicion at bay. He didn’t know why, but the idea Elsa would ever use him for his wealth rang ri
diculous. And yet, when he put himself in her position—so obviously poised on the brink of losing her business and home—he couldn’t help but wonder what he would be willing to do to ensure his survival. He couldn’t help but be reminded of things he’d already done.
Why should that matter? Why should it matter if she was using him? Gwyneth had and it hadn’t bothered him in the least. They’d used each other. She’d used him for position and access to New Gotham’s stratosphere. And he’d used her…however he’d wanted. Whenever he’d wanted. Perhaps it hadn’t started that way, but it had ended that way. Why should it matter to him whether this witch was using him too?
It shouldn’t. It didn’t.
“How much?” He pulled his wallet from his back pocket again and brandished another credit card.
“Three hundred pounds is her final offer.”
“And I assume that is entirely reasonable?”
“I did not think I would be able to reasonably negotiate below four hundred pounds, but…” her eyes twinkled with humor, “she seems to like you.”
Do you? The plastic felt like a silver stake, and he wondered whether he was unknowingly painting a target on his chest. His chest ached at the thought and he mercilessly blotted out the memories of their balcony encounter, his emotions clanging just behind iron doors. He studied her as a vampire and extended the card to her with a flick. “Take it.”
Elsa accepted the card, searching his face. “Many…thanks. Vampire,” she frowned, “is there something wrong?”
Madame Kikiyo appeared from around a corner with a brown package bound neatly with string and a parchment bill of purchase. He gave her his back and raked sharp eyes across the crowd.
“Pay Madame Kikiyo, Ms. Karr. We still have work to do.”
Chapter Seventeen
A few hours and many stalls and butter toffee apples later, Elsa found herself peering out across a mock winter wonderland. Cobalt blue skies, snowcapped mountains, and horizon were painted on the backdrop. Silver glitter dusted the cotton acting as snow. She stood, shoulders bunched, peering up at the thin birch tree in the middle. Stripped and naked branches stretched out from a narrow trunk, reaching for snowflakes drifting from no discernible source.