by Caleb James
“Don’t be,” Charlie said.
“You saved my life, Charlie. I….”
“It’s my job.” Charlie smiled, unable to pull his gaze off Liam.
I should not have kissed him. At least it wasn’t on the lips. Just a partial glamour. He’s strong. He’ll shake it off. I will never do that again. He sensed the old woman’s eyes on them. I must do no harm. “You did not have to help me. You did not have to save me from the fire or from the people with the bed on wheels. You did not have to bring me to the home of your Flora.” He felt tall Charlie’s struggle and knew it was the glamour. Get away from me, Charlie. Distance will help. Go to your Staten Island. Water eases a glamour’s hold. I’m so sorry.
“You’re welcome.”
The space between the two was electric, and if Flora hadn’t been present, Liam knew Charlie would have pressed for the kiss that would have completed the glamour and bound him body and soul. He edged back, needing to make distance and not wanting to. I’m sorry, brave Charlie. I will do you no more harm. “Go home, Charlie.” And Liam attempted something he’d heard was possible for fey in the human realm…. He lied. “We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Good.”
“Go home.”
“Right.” Charlie looked down at his feet and then back to Liam. “Right.” Awkwardly he backed toward the elevators. “I’ll call tomorrow.” He paused and looked from Liam to his gran. His expression brightened. “I’ve got two days off. I’ll take you to Mass on Sunday if you’d like.”
“That would be lovely.” Flora’s gaze narrowed. “You’ve not done that in a while. Can you even remember your last confession?”
“I know. I’m sorry.” He struggled not to look at Liam. “I’ll come by early, maybe take you both to breakfast.” His thoughts were scrambled by the kiss on the cheek, the need to look into Liam’s eyes, and a hunger to do much more.
“Go home, Charlie,” Liam urged. “You need rest.”
“And we’ll have breakfast in the morning,” Charlie said. “The three of us.”
“Yes, Charlie,” said Liam with a second lie, as he and Flora watched him make it to the elevator.
“He is a good man, my Charlie.” She turned to Liam. “You will not do him harm.”
“I won’t,” he said with lie number three. And I have.
“Good.” To the background noise of cats howling from their living room exile, she led him back to the kitchen. “We have much to discuss.”
He settled at the table as Flora put the kettle on.
“I will tell you what I can.” I will make amends.
She turned to him as the water heated. “Show me your ears.”
He grabbed his hair and pulled it back.
“And your teeth.”
He smiled.
“You look human.”
Liam’s fingers played over the tops of his ears, and he ran a finger against the tips of his teeth. “I need a looking glass.”
Flora opened a drawer, pushed aside unpaid bills, and retrieved a small compact. She clicked it open and slid it across the table. She watched as he studied his reflection.
He startled. This is not me. The reflection was of a man with gold, not silver, hair and dark lashes rimming eyes…. Those are still mine. I should have known. The tips of his fingers played across human teeth and ears shaped like the curve of a clam. It’s not just my magic that’s changed. Liam knew that for both human and fey, travel between realms came with cost. Yet predicting what it would be was impossible. For many it was their sanity, for others, their magic. For him, it was not only the loss of fairy flight, but his image was changed. His hair, his teeth, his ears, even his skin had darkened from pale white to a golden human tan. He stared back at himself through the looking glass. Only my eyes remain. I am still in here. And I don’t think I’m mad. Although….
The kettle whistled, and Flora brought a fresh pot of tea to the table. She poured mugs and spooned in four sugars and cream for Liam. “Yes, you are a handsome man, Liam. I see the effect you have on my Charlie.”
“I did not mean—”
“Shh. We both know you are not suited. But there’s more.”
Stunned by his reflection, he put down the mirror and looked at Flora.
“It’s time,” she said. “Tell me what you are, Liam Summer. Tell me everything.”
Six
DEEP IN her misty prison, May slumbered and dreamed. Her senses traced the arc of her fairy fire projectile. She purred, curling in on herself, as the missile pierced through worlds and landed on its target. She smelled chaos, blood, and cookies as the fireball ripped into the roof of the home where the haffling children once lived and where magic lingered. She hoped, like one hoped when placing a worm on a hook, that something, something good, would take the bait.
She dreamed of a little girl, nearly a woman, with straight blonde hair, china-blue eyes, and skin smooth as cream. Fairy fire, fairy fire, come and taste my fairy fire.
May’s dream traveled miles north in the human city of Manhattan. She drifted up the side of a building and into the window of the sleeping girl, her head lost in its own dreams. May watched the child, her body with the shape of a young woman, her breasts nearly full, her lips like petals of a rose. A body like that would be lovely in satin and lace. She envisioned a strapless midnight-blue gown and jewels. Shoes, shoes, pretty shoes. May hummed in her sleep. Her tongue flicked a bit of ogre from between her teeth. Dresses, pretty dresses, twirl and dance. She’s ripe enough, ripe enough. Tap, tap, tap.
May’s magic seeped into the sleeping girl—Alice, her name is Alice. Hello, Alice. Show me your dream.
May growled at the image of the girl’s brother—Alex—now a full-grown man. I will eat you and grind your bones to a paste. The thought calmed her. He’d bested her once and likely thought her dead. I’m not. Show me, Alice. Show me more. Images tumbled—sitting in class, a small room with men and women dressed in ugly clothes fighting one another, sometimes with bare hands, sometimes with wooden sticks. A boy with auburn hair, younger than Alice, but his image caused the girl to stir. Tell me his name, Alice. Tell me of this boy who quickens your pulse.
The girl resisted. May pushed, and the dream shifted to a building filled with books, and inside, Alice, with her nasty brother and his nasty boyfriend.
May squirmed. I will grind your bones into paste. Tasty, tasty, tasty paste. She watched them with their books. This smells familiar. Before she could make the connection, the dream morphed. Alice grabbed a book as her brother and his beau faded. She was on the street. Yes, yes, yes. And May let her magic dream, like a directional arrow, pull the girl down block after block. Fairy fire, fairy fire, come and taste my fairy fire.
Alice dreamed of her old apartment, the tiny one where she’d slept side by side with her brother Alex, in a room so small she could reach her hand from her bed to his. That’s right, child. Such a happy place for you, protected and loved by your brother. Your mother locked safely in her room. Now smell. So delicious. Fairy fire, fairy fire, come and taste my fairy fire.
FOURTEEN-YEAR-OLD ALICE Nevus woke from a dream. For an instant she wondered—hoped—that she was back in their pathetic old place on East Third. But no, this was her light-filled bedroom with attached bath. Her brother Alex, now in his second year of premed at NYU, no longer lived with them. A strand of hair caught in her mouth. She chewed it and tried to clear her head. It was six thirty, and morning sun streamed through the sheers. Not a school day. Though her book bag and tablet were loaded with many hours of weekend homework. As a freshman at Stuyvesant High School, staying on top of her studies was not an option and was not easy.
She grabbed her phone and read through the texts she’d exchanged last night with Clay. He was in your dream. He wanted to know if she’d make it to kung fu. She’d texted back she would, knowing it was one of the only places in her life—in that tiny Chinatown basement studio—where she could relax with people who knew her and her secrets. That they’d also be
trying to clobber one another, often with wooden swords, didn’t seem to ruin that.
It’s too early to call Alex, who’d be snuggled in bed with Jerod. Besides, his life was filled with his own crazy goals and the need to get straight As so he could get into medical school, preferably NYU or Columbia so he could stay in the city.
She scanned her room, with its creamy lemon walls, a tribal rug she’d bought at the Twenty-Fifth Street flea market, bookcases, all the stuff she’d never had before when they were dirt poor. And it wasn’t just Alex she missed but his impossible little fairy—Nimby. This was so much nicer, and so empty.
Her phone’s message notification chirped; it was Clay.
“You up?”
“Duh.”
“Check out Channel Eight. NOW!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“K.”
Still holding the phone, she grabbed the remote from the side table and clicked on the TV. At first, she didn’t get it.
“Holy shit!”
“Yeah… good thing U don’t live there anymore.”
She stared at the screen and the female reporter in front of their old building, who was trying to interview a long-haired blond guy wrapped in a Red Cross blanket. Alice perched on the edge of her bed and searched for the windows that would have been theirs. Her breath caught as she saw the glass had been smashed out in the kitchen. Something twisted inside. The place had sucked, it stank of garbage in the heat, and by the time you made it up the six flights of stairs, you’d be winded and drenched with sweat. There was no air-conditioning. I miss it. Even the bathtub in front of the kitchen window, where Alex had cut and painted a piece of plywood so it doubled as a counter. I miss Alex. Yes, she was glad he and Jerod were together, but she was jealous too.
The reporter moved on to a Hispanic woman holding a baby, who Alice remembered from the building. She was with her kids, and one of them held a cat carrier. Beneath the picture were instructions on how to get donations of food, clothing, and money to the fire victims through the Red Cross.
A message dinged. She glanced at the screen.
“You okay?”
Not needing to look, her thumbs whipped back, “Weirded out.” The news shifted to sports, and Alice caught the smell, the one from the dream. Something baking… and something burning. Her mouth watered.
“You want company?”
She pictured Clay, two years younger than she was. He looked a lot like his older brother, Jerod, and if the genetic gods held true, the cute tween would break hearts. Alex had already pulled her aside and told her to be careful with him, that Clay had a crush on her. She wished he’d never told her. It complicated things. Clay was her best friend and one of the few people she trusted. Years back he’d even tried to save her, when the Office of Children and Family Services had carted her off. He didn’t succeed, but still…. How many people would break the law for you? She looked at the screen. Yes, I want company, she thought. But she texted back, “No, but thanks. I’ll see you at Sifu’s.”
“Kewl.”
She ended the conversation with an eye-rolling animated emoticon. The smell grew. She opened the window to let in the spring air and the sounds of Lexington Avenue, nineteen floors below. She inhaled. It’s stronger. Where is it coming from?
Phone in hand, she glanced at her emoticon and thought of texting Clay to see if he wanted to go with her. No, don’t lead him on. And you have way too much work to get through. That smell… so delicious.
She grabbed jeans, a tee, and one of Alex’s Stuyvesant hoodies. Just a quick walk. It wouldn’t be the first time, either. Sometimes she needed to go down the old block and remember. They weren’t good times… but they kind of were. She stared through the open window. It was a beautiful day in New York City, and it smelled of cookies.
Seven
CHARLIE GOT off the Staten Island ferry operating on no sleep, Red Cross coffee, and Gran’s tea…. Why did he kiss me? He couldn’t shake the feeling that he’d let a moment, possibly the most important of his life, slip by. He kissed me…. On the cheek, man. Pull it together. He couldn’t. The half-mile walk from the train was a tangled medley of Liam, starting with the feel of his skin and Charlie’s attempts to not ogle the guy who’d nearly died. You got him out of there. So he kissed you—on the cheek. You saved the guy’s life. The feel of his weight against his back as he’d carried him into the cherry picker. Even more, the look on Liam’s face as he’d coaxed the little dog to jump through fire. And it wasn’t even his dog. Those seconds could have cost both of us our lives—for a dog that wasn’t his.
Out of your league. The guy probably has someone—boyfriend, girlfriend, one of each, several. Shut up! Those eyes. The way he looked at me. He stopped at the bottom of a bifurcated driveway. To the right stood his parents’ waterfront home—still a construction site years after the near-total devastation of Hurricane Sandy—and to the left, the two-story garage and apartment where he’d lived since he was seventeen.
Gran’s question rang in his head as he walked up the stairs to his place. “Why not bring him back to Staten Island?” He keyed in, pulled out his cell, and scrolled through long lists of texts and voice mails. “And that’s why,” he said.
The texts started with his brother Michael’s reminder about dinner with the family on Sunday, followed by his sister-in-law asking him to pick up a bottle of her favorite wine in the city, which he’d not done. He clicked from there to his mother’s voice mail telling him she saw him on the morning news at the fire in the East Village, followed by his father—Mike, not Michael—asking to borrow his truck to pick up tile in Jersey. Then a message from Dad saying he went ahead anyway and took the truck, and that he’d fill the tank.
Exhausted, wired, and ripe from the fire, he needed a shower and sleep. But his mind would not shut up. Liam. He sank to the couch and stared through the window at an unobstructed view of the water and the rocky beach where the Murphys’ house once stood. So he’s handsome… beautiful, is that it? You don’t go to bars, you don’t hook up because you want something real, and the first naked guy you pull from a burning building…. He smiled and replayed Liam’s voice, his halting responses, as if testing each word before it left his mouth. The trace of an accent, maybe Irish but faint, like someone born there but here for many years.
His back against the cushions, he pictured Liam at Gran’s kitchen table and then when he’d first met him, so frightened, so naked. Self-consciously Charlie thought of his own physique—strong, sure, but not since high school football and his days as a running back had his stomach been as flat and ripped as Liam’s. Probably a gym rat or circuit guy. Why else would he be naked in an abandoned apartment… but then, wouldn’t there be someone else or a whole orgy? He pulled his mind from the disturbing and arousing thoughts that too little sleep and a kiss on the cheek were leading to.
The rest of the fire blurred in his mind—the weird smells, expecting to find an illegal bakery somewhere in that building, but no. And every chance he got, searching the crowds to see if Liam was still there. The first break he’d gotten, telling himself he was just checking on the guy he’d saved—Yeah, right—his pulse quickened at the memory. Wondering, worried that he was gone, vanished into the night, and the moment he spotted him with the Red Cross lady and the medics. He should have gone to the hospital. The fear in Liam’s eyes and how that changed. Stop it. You helped the guy out. He was grateful. He kissed me—on the cheek.
The arousal he’d been fighting since first locking eyes on Liam would not let go. Just do it. And feeling like a perv, he replayed stolen images of Liam’s perfect body—He’s got to be a model—broad shoulders tapering to an impossibly slender waist, a light trail of golden hair down rippled abs, leading to…. Charlie barely had to touch himself as he pictured Liam’s ass. While he’d done everything possible to not cop a feel, it couldn’t be helped. Firm. But it was the memory of his beautiful face and violet eyes looking into his that pushed him into the most intense orgasm of his life.
He dreamed. It was like he’d never left work. It started with the station-house alarm. He looked around for the rest of his crew. I’m the only one here. He shouted, “Patrick! Kyle! Bill! Gerry! Steve! Sarge!” There’s no one. What the fuck? He knew, as one does in dreams, that he couldn’t wait. There was no time to call for backup. He suited up, climbed into the Number 25 engine, and with sirens wailing, tore out.
You’ve got to be kidding me. The navigation system on the truck was blacked out, and he tried to remember the address. Where’s the fire?
He turned; Liam was beside him.
“You don’t need that,” the beautiful man said.
“I do. I don’t know where the fire is.”
“You saved me. That’s enough for one day.”
“It’s my job.”
“I understand, Charlie. But turn around. Please. Don’t do this.”
Charlie spotted a billowing wall of smoke in front of them, only more like fog, blue, swirling, and strange. It obscured all behind it, like half of Manhattan was submerged in an impenetrable fog.
Liam pleaded, “Turn around, Charlie. You can’t stop it.”
“It’s my job.”
“Charlie, no! You can’t stop it. Please listen.”
Charlie aimed the truck into the mist. He grabbed ventilator masks and passed one to Liam. “Put this on.”
The truck barreled into the fog.
“What the hell?” Blanketed in fog, Charlie saw moving shadows and lights. Something lunged at the truck. “What was that?”
Liam clutched the mask and pressed back. His eyes went wide as something clawed at his window.