by Caleb James
“Alice?”
“Hey, bro.” I don’t want to talk to him. Then why did I call?
“What’s wrong?”
Hang up. “You don’t know. There was a big fire at our place last night.” Just hang up. He’s got things to do. He doesn’t need you bothering him every minute.
“What are you talking about?”
“Our old place on Third. People died, a woman and two kids. I wonder if we knew them.”
“Where are you?” he asked. He sounded concerned.
Don’t answer. Don’t tell him. It’s none of his business. “In front of the building. Alex… it smells like cookies.”
“What are you doing there?”
“I had to see.” The smell. Hang up the phone. Hang up. Follow the smell. So delicious.
“Alice…. Alice, you need to get away from there. Alice? Alice?”
But the phone was back in her pocket, and she crossed the street. A cop sipping coffee with his partner looked up. “Miss, you can’t be here. You need to stay behind the barriers.”
Without breaking pace, she pulled back her hood and looked him dead in the eyes. “That’s okay, officers.”
The cops turned as she gazed from one to the other, her clear blue eyes wide, trusting, and something else. “It’s okay, officers. It’s okay for me to be here.”
They nodded—Of course you can be here—as she crossed the barriers and headed up the stairs into the delightful-smelling burned-out shell she’d once called home.
FROM A world away, May tugged at the strings of her magic. Like an angler reeling in a trout, she tickled the line and sought access to the girl’s thoughts. She’d nearly lost it at the sound of the horrible boy’s voice. Alex Nevus, you will pay. I will grind your bones to paste. She snorted, realizing she’d eaten far too much troll and had started to think like one. We are what we eat. Which for May, with her ravenous hunger, meant gorging on the slow and easy-to-trap trolls and ogres. Plus, the magic in their bones, blood, meat, and organs was considerable, the fuel to feed her fire.
With more force—but mustn’t scare her away—she pressed Alice to hang up on her wicked brother. Breathe deep. So delicious, my pretty girl. The intoxicating scent of fairy fire was a prelude of what was to come. She marveled as the lovely teen used magic—She has glamour—to bypass the soldiers in blue. Alice, Alice, Alice, I should have waited for you. I was too impatient. Boys are such a bother—no pretty dresses, no midnight-blue satin with diamonds in our hair. But you, pretty, pretty. Breathe deep.
Every step the girl took into the building ripe with fairy fire and its highly addictive byproduct, fairy dust, heightened May’s access to the girl’s thoughts. She felt the pores of her skin and how her feet skimmed over the rubble-strewn floor. Lovely, like it was her own fingers now delicately touching the charred banister.
May inhaled, fanned the fire in her gut, and blew out a stream of tether magic. It caught fast to Alice, and like a pirate boarding a ship, May was nearly in. Come, child, let’s do what we came for.
Through Alice’s eyes May stared up through the tunneled hole the fiery ball had caused in the building. She glimpsed the sky. Inconsequential. We must go down… quickly. She knew the girl had alerted her horrible brother and he’d soon appear. Quickly. She found the basement door, its hinges removed, the stairs drenched and dark.
We must go down. Smell it. So wonderful. So delicious. Hurry.
ALICE LOOKED down the stairwell and salivated. She breathed deep. The dark wasn’t so bad. Her eyes adjusted and kept her from falling down the slick and rickety stairs. At the bottom she spotted a gentle orange glow, where the smell originated—Something’s still burning—but not dangerous. It felt warm, delicious, and safe, like Alex’s everything-in-the-fridge stew on a February day. She had to see, to feel its glow on her face. The heat and the smell. Without thought she reached a hand toward the glowing basketball-sized orb. Its surface shimmered. Something about it was both beautiful and sad, as its fire faded and it blackened.
She expected it to be hotter than it was. It didn’t burn, and as her fingers drew close to its surface, there was no pain. Just a wonderful tingle in the tips of her fingers that traveled up her arms. A sense of security, like nothing bad could ever happen, washed over her. Even more, as her forefinger touched down—It doesn’t burn—all her pain, all the horrible things that had been done to her as a child, the years of paralyzing fear that she’d be taken from her brother and crazy mother and stuck in yet another dangerous foster home, her self-doubt, her sense of being a freak, of not fitting in—it was gone.
Her fingers splayed over the wonderful sphere, and then her other hand touched down. Holding it in her grasp, so beautiful, so warm….
“Who’s down there?” a man’s deep voice called from the top of the stairs.
Alice startled and drew her hands back from the orb.
“Who’s down there?” Heavy boots descended.
Alice looked back at the dying ball. Her fingers were sticky. The smell was on her hands, and she stuck her fingers in her mouth. Oh my God! White light exploded in her head, her eyes widened, and a grin spread across her face. Oh my God! All her sadness had been replaced with joy, bliss, euphoria. She threw back her head and gazed up through the hole punched in the building. This is amazing! I don’t want this feeling to ever stop!
A WORLD away, a giant white salamander hummed and slept and sang.
“Fairy fire, fairy fire, come and taste my fairy fire.
After fire comes the dust. Fairy dust, fairy dust, come and try my fairy dust.
Just a taste, just a taste. It starts a lust and becomes a must.”
Nine
CHARLIE, DRESSED in his navy go-to-church-weddings-and-funerals suit, white shirt, and tie, arrived in Gramercy. He parked his red 4x4 Ford SuperCab pickup with the FDNY sticker in the front window and rode up the elevator to Gran’s.
A day later and his thoughts were still fixed on Liam. His chest ached, like a piece of himself he’d not known existed had been ripped out. Why did he run? It’s something I did. What did I do?
As Gran opened the door, Aldo streaked for the hall. Charlie was quicker. He scooped up the squirming tabby and, as he stood, caught the force of Gran’s scrutiny. While he sometimes got things past Mom and Dad, Flora Fitzgerald could not be fooled.
“No, he did not come back,” she said.
He put the cat down. “That’s not—”
“Don’t even start. Your head is like glass… at least to me.”
“You look nice, Gran,” he said, taking in her soft-gray dress, green cardigan, and pearls.
“Ah yes, the Fitzgerald bait and switch. Your blue-eyed charm gets you far.” She sighed. “You’re disappointed. I’m sorry.”
“About what?”
“The boy, your Liam.”
“He wasn’t mine.”
“But you’d hoped. I’m not blind.” She gathered her hat, gloves, and purse.
“Maybe I did.”
“No maybe about it. But let me ask you this, Charlie. Did you know a single thing about that man… I mean, other than his pretty package?”
Charlie choked on his laugh.
“What?”
“Nothing, Gran.” His cheeks flushed as he thought of how he’d first encountered Liam, stark naked. A pretty package indeed. And from there he hurtled into the near-constant erotic free fall he’d been having ever since.
She cuffed him upside the head. “I know what filth runs through your head, Charlie. Now behave, or the good Lord will strike you dead in the middle of Mass.” With that she grabbed her gloves and hat, handed him her keys, and they left.
OUTSIDE, THE Uber car he’d ordered—a black SUV—waited. Even on a Sunday, it was too risky to get parking close enough to the Thirty-Fourth Street St. Michael’s. Throughout the familiar service, his thoughts ran back to Liam, his face like one of the stained-glass angels, the brush of his lips, his voice…. Beside Gran he dutifully stood, sat, and knelt,
his mouth going through the motions. His eyes drank in the morning sun that streamed in colors through the intricate window. He knew this was an obsession. It was unhealthy. He knew it had to be based on physical attraction. The guy’s hot. What else could it be?
Mindlessly, he mouthed the prayer responses as he replayed his moments with Liam. What did I miss? His eyes. Who the fuck has purple eyes? Why was he so frightened? What was he doing in that apartment in the first place? With no clothes. How do you get a body like that? What happened to him? Why was he there? Disturbing questions intruded. Did he have something to do with the fire? The fire was obviously arson. Some incendiary device had landed on the roof and burned through the floor in front of the apartment where he’d found Liam. His friend Fire Marshal Finn Hulain, a presence in the Fitzgerald home his entire life, would say “There are no coincidences.”
Charlie rose up from his knees and helped Gran do the same. His stomach churned. A woman and two kids, one of them a baby, died in that fire. If Liam had something to do with that… or knew something…. Is that why he ran?
I have to find him….
You’re not a cop or a fire marshal. This is not your job….
I have to find him.
Fine, and how exactly do you plan to do that?
AFTER MASS he asked Gran, “Do you want to go for brunch?”
She turned. “Did I just fall off the turnip truck?”
“What did I say?”
“Charles Michael Fitzgerald, not once have you ever asked if I wanted to go to brunch after Mass. You just take me. Today you ask because you’re hoping I’ll say no and you can run off to whatever scheme you’ve concocted to track down Liam.”
He was struck silent.
“Cat got your tongue? And don’t you think five perfectly sweet cats hissing at a stranger and howling so loud they woke the neighbors was a bit odd?”
“He smelled of fire.”
“You smell of fire all the time, as do half your cousins. Not once have they behaved like that. It’s the boy, Charlie. Trust me on this. He’s not right.” She shook her head. “I’m wasting my breath… of which I’ve a limited amount. No, Charlie, your gran, who lives alone with too many cats and only gets out when her family sees fit to remember she’s alive and fetch her for an hour or two, doesn’t want to go to brunch. Nothing would make me happier than to know you’re off chasing one of the good—” She stopped in midrant.
Charlie’s ears perked. “A good what, Gran?”
“It’s nothing.” She looked up from under the brim of her hat and smiled.
He narrowed his gaze. “Or the kind of thing to be discussed over brunch?”
“Eggs Benedict and boozy Mary has been known to loosen the tongue.”
“Fine, we’re going to brunch.”
“Of course we are. It’s what we always do after Mass. If you’re going to chase a handsome man who will break your heart, you mustn’t also break the things that will piece you back together.”
“Point taken.”
“I hope so, Charlie, because you’ve not yet felt the pain of heartbreak.” She stopped herself. “Not that kind, son…. I know you’ve had loss. We all have. I’m surrounded by my dead. They crowd me.”
Gran’s words hit deep as he caught sight of the black Uber Toyota. It never took much to feel his own dead—his oldest brother, Rory, his uncle Michael, and the man he was named after, Uncle Charlie, all killed in 9/11, when Charlie was eight. He could still remember them, how they’d crowd into cabs after Mass and shout over each other at Sunday dinner with the never-ending Fitzgerald family feud of Was it better to be a cop or a firefighter? Each faction took Charlie and his brother Michael aside and exacted promises that when they were old enough they’d make the proper choice, which often included bribes of a silver dollar to seal the deal.
“Traditions matter, Charlie,” Gran said as they pulled up to Camille’s, her favorite brunch place in Gramercy. “And they fade. Your generation doesn’t understand, and the past gets tossed like yesterday’s paper. Your boy Liam didn’t smell of smoke but of something much older, something forgotten… something dangerous. That’s what the cats smelled.”
Charlie forced a laugh. “You’re making stuff up.”
“I’m not,” she said without humor. “I wouldn’t do that to you, Charlie. But I’ll tell you this.” And she waited as he opened the door and helped her out. “You’re about to liquor up your gran… and have two or three yourself. There’s things you need to know… and booze will help.”
Ten
FROM THE hidden protection of a boulder, Liam stared transfixed as Charlie shouted and searched for him. It took all his strength to not call out “I’m here, Charlie.”
Something tore inside as Charlie’s dream, which had brought Liam home to Fey, unraveled, and he and his great red firefighting dragon vanished.
Paralyzed and broken, he watched. She was in the Mist.
Be safe, Charlie. “I should not have brought you here.” Though that had not been his intent. He’d been in the old woman’s guest bed, the vile cats outside his door, clawing to get in. He’d fallen asleep… and then here he was. How did this happen? How is it possible for me to ride on Charlie’s dream? You kissed me. You should not have.
He stared at the dense wall of blue-gray that separated worlds. The kiss still lingered. It tore at him. The smell of Charlie… and of something else. He struggled to put the connections together. He smelled of fairy fire. And what comes with fairy fire?
His tongue played inside his mouth. What comes after fairy fire is fairy dust. It didn’t add up, riding on the dream of someone he’d just met. Someone brave and strong, who’d rescued him from a burning… that was caused by fairy fire. She set that fire.
Not one to pray, he did. Be okay, Charlie. Don’t let her get you…. Don’t be broken. Please stay whole. The thought was too awful to contemplate. But passages between the See and the Unsee exacted a price from the traveler, whether human or fey. For most humans, and many fey, the cost of the voyage was your sanity.
Moments back in the Unsee, he’d gained one vital piece of information—the whereabouts of Queen May. She was in the Mist—and she’s trapped, or she would have followed—and in the form of a massive white salamander. But trapped isn’t dead.
He looked to where Charlie had vanished. A tear tracked down his cheek. Please be safe. Please be whole.
He shuddered at the memory of the salamander’s gaping maw against the window, her tongue like a poker on the glass, wanting to pierce his heart. To devour him and swallow what little magic remained. Charlie hadn’t flinched. He’d driven them out of danger… again. How can someone be so brave? He walks into burning buildings and brings a stranger into his grandmother’s house. A foolish man. A beautiful man.
He batted at his face. Tears fell. I don’t cry. Not since…. Brutal scenes of his childhood played in his mind. The last time he’d shed tears was when she’d ripped his parents open and feasted on their organs. Why now? The wet on his cheeks felt strange. He licked the saltwater from his finger, the faint taste of fairy fire… a hint of dust.
He scanned the meadow for signs of life and made another realization. The Mist was both a wall between the worlds… and a potential passage. He thought of another boy, one May had sent him to seduce. He’d come another way, on the back of a puka, a nightmare…. But I did the same. I rode in on Charlie’s dream. Through the Mist, past May, to here. And I’m alone.
Something skittered over his bare foot. He looked down; there was nothing. But wait. He narrowed his gaze. As he did, forms shimmered in the air and on the ground. Like a cat’s eye adjusting to the night, creatures of the Unsee were revealed. A family of elves gathering juniper berries, a flock of pixies hovering over the Western Sea, and far to the south, he glimpsed the turrets of May’s palaces, the place he’d been raised, the place he’d witnessed and experienced May’s sadism, including the murder of his parents and of hundreds, if not thousands, of fey who dis
pleased her. It was there, in her private kitchen, he’d learned her greatest truth. The murders were more than her means of filling her subjects with fear and obedience. They were her source of power, or at least its greatness. From a hiding hole, he’d seen. It hadn’t just been his parents. Beautiful Queen May, with her satins and gowns and romantic cotillions beneath fairy light, ate her victims. Her jaw unhooked, and the dainty queen swallowed the little things whole, and the bigger creatures, the ogres and trolls, she’d cut into bite-size chunks and wolf down. It’s what became of his parents. It’s what she would do to him for his failure to seduce Alex Nevus and his complicity in Uncle Cedric’s plot to help Alex and Jerod escape.
He closed his eyes, wondering if back in the Unsee his magic had returned. He opened himself to the air currents. Nothing. He did not move. He tried a second and then a third time.
It’s gone. Both here and there. He knew the rules, and he knew the exceptions. It’s why May was obsessed with possessing a haffling, a half human and half fey who could travel unbroken between realms. The only other exception, one he would never know, was with the protection of pure, unconditional, and reciprocated love.
“Liam.” He turned at the sound of a familiar voice.
“Cedric.” At first he was barely able to see his uncle’s form, but by holding still and squinting, his shape solidified. His flowing silver-blond hair, a russet jacket with braided green piping, his mouth pursed, his expression perplexed.
“You’ve changed.” Cedric’s eyes, violet like his own, took inventory. “Tell me of your whereabouts.”
“The human realm, and now I’m back,” Liam stated. “I can barely see you. I cannot take to the wind. I am like the three-legged dog.”