Exile

by Caleb James

  “No, a cousin, and he too found himself at the pointy end of May’s sword, though that came later. I don’t think of these things, Charlie, and yet… I suppose I have to. The fear that rules the Unsee—she will bring it here. And beyond the horror of what happened lies bits of my life with my parents. I can’t seem to get to one without going through the other. My mother, Ileana, I think she always knew. I can remember sitting on her lap and playing with her hair as she’d tell me stories and teach me about magic. My father, Cullen, of him I remember little, other than he looked a lot like Cedric but in my mind’s eye is taller and stronger.”

  “They sound like heroes, Liam. And bad stuff happens here too.”

  “I see that. Buildings catch on fire.”

  “Or are lit. We go off to war in countries that have little to do with us. We say it’s for principals and freedom, but it’s often not. More about oil and politics, money… drugs. We have our own crazy queens and kings who slaughter thousands and even millions. God, this is depressing.”

  “Then let’s talk of other things,” Liam offered.

  “Like how beautiful your eyes are.”

  “A woman today told me she’d kill for them. I don’t think she was serious, and she did help me find the right subway.”

  “About that,” Charlie said. “How the hell did you find your way to Staten Island? And that’s one hell of a coincidence, you meeting Annie and Daria on the ferry.”

  “People are kind here.”

  “Are you kidding? This is New York City.”

  “No, everyone today was kind. The woman who wanted my eyes, she walked me to the subway. From there another girl slid a piece of plastic through a metal lock and took me to the right train.” He reached into his pocket and pulled out a wad of bills. “I assume this is money.”

  “How did you get that?”

  “A man who showed me where the ferry was gave it to me.”

  As Charlie pulled onto his street, he glanced at Liam and the money in his hand. “There’s got to be over two hundred bucks there. People don’t just give strangers that kind of money, unless….”

  “I did nothing for this money,” Liam protested, aware of the direction Charlie’s thoughts had taken.

  “I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to—”

  “No. I have told you what I am and what I’ve done. You were right to think that.”

  More than anything, Charlie wished he could take back his unspoken accusation. He pulled into the drive. It was ten past midnight. The light was on in his parents’ bedroom. Mom, possibly Dad as well, were still up and reading their shared guilty pleasure of romance novels. An entire upstairs bedroom was filled with shelves of bodice rippers and period stories of the plucky shopgirl and the jaded duke/earl/count/baron/CEO in need of her redemptive love.

  He parked the truck, acutely aware of the man at his side. Between them lay the stack of books from Gran. “Liam.”

  “Yes, Charlie.”

  “I told you that I wouldn’t bother you… you know, in that way.”

  Liam nodded, the air in the truck heavy. He read the hunger in Charlie’s eyes. But you feel something too. Do him no harm. “Yes.”

  “Gran said the damage is done. You said the same thing and a lot more about how horrible you are, and… just so you know, you’re not. And if you are… I don’t care. But here’s the thing.” Charlie heard the ramble in his head. Just go for it…. No, ask for it. “One kiss, Liam. Right here, and once we go in, I promise to keep my hands to myself. Just one.”

  Liam felt the space between them and Charlie’s smell, human and musky. “Yes.” And he felt, rather than saw, Charlie come to him, his hands tentative on the sides of his face. Charlie’s fingers at the back of his neck, his heat, his strength, and a heretofore unknown thought—I love him. And then the kiss, unlike any before. Always the one in control, Liam tumbled and fell into Charlie’s embrace, all bad thoughts and memories replaced by Charlie’s lips on his. I don’t want this to end. I don’t want this to ever end.

  Twenty

  LIAM’S BODY hummed as he sat in the Greenwich Village Greek diner and waited. Charlie had given him a MetroCard, and he had plenty of money from the man who’d brought him to the ferry. More importantly, there’d been another kiss. Not like the one in the dream or the one last night… in his truck, the sound of the waves in his ears, the realization that Yes, I, Liam Summer, can love, do love. I love Charlie. The morning kiss as he’d handed Liam the MetroCard and drawn a different route on the map he’d gotten from the man in green, was the best kiss of all. Yes, there’d been passion, hunger, and a bit of tongue, but there was no doubt. A kiss of connection, of I am yours and you are mine. Charlie, what have we done? He thought back through last night, Charlie’s hand in his as they’d walked along the shore before going upstairs. Charlie had stayed true to his word—damn him—of just one kiss. But that walk, gentle waves and sand beneath their feet, hands connected, and the moon’s silver light across the water. He replayed each moment, and when they’d finally gone up to his little house, and he’d turned the sofa into a bed. What sweet agony, lying there, knowing Charlie was just feet away in his own bed. Just one kiss.

  A waitress in a red-checked uniform materialized with a berry-filled pastry and a foam-topped coffee. “It’s from the woman over there.”

  Liam nodded and smiled in the direction of his patroness. In that instant, his buzz vanished. It’s glamour. He looked at the sticky treat and the pretty woman in her dove-gray business suit, who’d sent it his way. He heard May in his head. “You are my toy, Liam Summer, as is your uncle. Pretty toys to play on the affection, to snare and entrap. Your magic is the cruelest of all. You trick in love.”

  That’s what I’ve done with Charlie. He spooned sugar into the white-capped mug of coffee. He said he doesn’t care. It was no use. They all said that. Once glamoured, the victim’s reason was gone. Glamoured love was blind, deaf, and more than a little dumb. His mood darkened. He didn’t want to think about what had become of those he’d snared for her, most of them ending up gutted on her kitchen floor, their usefulness to her gone. Their magic ripped from their bodies.

  His appetite ruined, he pushed away the pastry and the sweet milky coffee laced with chocolate. While he’d lost his magic in the travel between worlds, the glamour remained, and while it made strangers help him on the subway, give him money, and buy him treats in diners, he wanted rid of it. I don’t want to be me—not that me. I am done with this. But May was deep in his mind. “The leopard does not change its spots, boy. You are mine, Liam Summer. Liam the whore.”

  A flitting motion from outside the diner window drew his attention. A black Nevus fairy with vivid orange-and-black wings and beneath it, Alex Nevus and Jerod Haynes.

  Liam inhaled as he spotted the men. He stood as they approached. He’d wondered if they would show. They’d both matured, no longer boys but tall and handsome men, Alex with hair the color of a crow’s wing and Jerod’s chestnut kissed with red and gold. “You both look well.”

  “You look different. The trip across changed you,” Alex stated, clearly not eager to join him at his table.

  “Thank you for coming. I bear messages from your mother, Marilyn, and your father, Cedric.”

  “Tell me of my brother, Adam.”

  “He is well. He is younger than you remember. Some of the years May stole were returned to him. Please, sit with me. I will buy you something to eat.”

  The waitress reappeared. “No you won’t,” she said. “Before that woman left, she gave me a hundred bucks for whatever you wanted. I get to keep what’s left for a tip.”

  Liam shrugged, and Alex and Jerod took their seats.

  “It happens to Alice too,” Alex said. “People always give her stuff. It’s kind of freaky.”

  “It’s glamour. I do not do it deliberately… at least, not lately.” He realized that Alex knew the truth. He’d been on the receiving end of Liam’s glamour, though his love for Jerod had protected him
.

  Alex nodded. “Good. It sounds like you’re doing the twelve-step thing. You said you had word from my parents. Let’s have it.”

  Liam felt the weight of Alex’s distrust, and the facial expression on the little fairy that perched on his shoulder spoke volumes. They hate me… and with reason. As for Jerod, if looks could kill, Liam knew he’d be cold on the floor. “Yes, they are both well and strong. The Mist that devoured the Unsee has stopped its growth. In spots, it has retreated.” He paused. “Marilyn would know that you and your sister are safe and happy.”

  “We are,” Alex said. “So you’re going back.”

  “I suspect so, yes.” Liam sensed the powerful bond between the two men. “You do look well and in love. It makes me feel… strange.”

  “Jealous?” Jerod asked.

  “Perhaps, but not in the way you think…. Hopeful.”

  “Charlie Fitzgerald,” Jerod said.

  “No, he is too good for me.” Heat rose in his cheeks. He grabbed his coffee and could not look at them. “As you’re aware, Alex Nevus and Jerod Haynes, I have done much that is shameful. I was set to harm you, Alex.”

  “Yeah, about that,” Alex said. “In the end, it didn’t matter. You failed, and May still got what she wanted.”

  “It did matter. It is important, as it’s a piece of why she failed. That is the other thing I must do…. Queen May is not dead.”

  Nimby fluttered at the mention of the mad queen.

  “She turned into a giant white lizard and then vanished,” Jerod said.

  “An amphibian, but yes, a salamander, and she is not gone but trapped by her sister Lizbeta in the Mist. She grows strong, and she is hungry. Lizbeta’s collar will not hold. I must know how you defeated her. For once she breaks free, she will seek vengeance, blood, and thrones, both there and here.”

  Alex looked at him dead-on, “Tell me, Liam Summer, servant to the queen, how are we supposed to trust you? How do we know it’s not May who sent you, who’s looking for a way to succeed where before she failed?”

  “You are right not to trust. I no longer belong to May, and there’s no reason for you to believe that. I cannot say it plainer, other than when and if she returns, she will kill me.” He ran his hands through his hair, struggling to find the words that would make these two believe him and even trust him, if just a little. “You know me for what I am.” He looked from one to the other and did not flinch from the disgust in their eyes.

  Alex snorted. “I think somebody needs self-esteem therapy.” He turned to Nimby. “Can I trust him?”

  “He is not lying,” she replied. “But do not trust him.”

  Alex shook his head. “Great…. Maybe we can help each other. Have you seen the video?”

  “No. I do not know what that is.”

  “Then come with us. There’s someone you need to meet… the other sister.”

  Twenty-One

  KYLE SCHMIDT shot a stream of water into Charlie’s face.

  The cold and wet shocked him. “Hey! What was that for?”

  “Earth to Fitzgerald. You’ve been standing with that sponge, staring at the same spot for, like, five minutes. The truck ain’t going to clean itself. What’s with you?”

  Charlie looked from the side of the engine to the warm soapy water dribbling down his hand onto the cement floor. “It’s nothing.”

  “Yeah, right. What’s his name?”

  Before Charlie could answer, his cell rang.

  Schmidt chuckled. “I’ll get it out of you… and it’s about time, Fitzgerald.”

  With his free hand, he dug out his phone.

  “Charlie?” Finn’s voice spoke on the other end.

  “What’s up?”

  “We need to talk.”

  “About?”

  “Your Liam.”

  Charlie was about to argue that Liam wasn’t his, but even thinking not mine made his stomach hurt. That plus the tone of Finn’s voice braced him for bad. “What about him?”

  “Can you get away? I’d rather do this in person.”

  “Now you’re scaring me.” He looked at Kyle, who was doing his best to eavesdrop while pretending to hose the truck. “You know, Schmidt, people say women gossip, but really? Give a guy some privacy.” He hurled the sponge at Kyle’s head, and before Kyle could retaliate, he ducked out the open bay of the station house into a warm spring day. He put the phone back to his ear. “Where are you?”

  “Pulling up.”

  Charlie turned as Finn angled the red-and-white Bureau of Fire Investigation SUV into one of the reserved spots. On its back window was the agency’s gold seal with the Latin Veritas ex Cineribus—Truth from the ashes.

  Finn rolled down the window. “Get in.”

  Charlie pocketed his phone. The expression on Finn’s face ratcheted up his anxiety. “We going somewhere?”

  “I don’t want to be overheard.”

  “Got it. So what is it you’re going to tell me that I don’t want to know?” His head filled with worst-case scenarios, like maybe Liam started the fire, which considering it was arson, would mean three counts of homicide.

  “Did you find him?”

  “Liam?”

  “Yeah, Charlie. And by the way, thank you for softening up that scumbag Slotnik.”

  “My pleasure, and yeah… I found him.” And I kissed him, and we walked in the moonlight, and I wanted to do a whole lot more, and it took everything I had to not jump his bones last night, and please don’t tell me he’s a suspect.

  “Where is he?”

  Charlie looked Finn dead-on. “Why?”

  Finn nodded and didn’t speak. “Here’s the deal, Charlie. Nothing about that fire adds up… including naked Liam. I need to talk to him. You know that. He was the closest person to whatever took out that building.”

  “You think he set it.”

  “I don’t know, and you’re putting me in a bad spot. Tell me where he is. This isn’t a negotiation. And I already called your Gran, and she said he wasn’t there anymore, and then she clammed up.”

  Charlie smiled. Gran might not like or trust Liam, but she was no snitch. “He’s with me….”

  “At your place…. What’s that mean, Charlie?”

  “He needed a place to stay. He’s on the couch.”

  “Is he there now?”

  “I don’t think so. He was going to meet someone.”

  “Enough with the half answers, Charlie. Don’t be the perp.”

  Charlie looked at Finn, who’d been there his entire life. Growing up, he and Rory playing ball, making a raft out of logs they’d tied together and fishing off it in Saint George Bay. They’d always been so much older, the decade plus that separated them had seemed like a lifetime to Charlie. Always on the outside of his boisterous big brother and redheaded best friend, who probably spent more nights at the Fitzgeralds’ dinner table than his own two blocks away. Charlie had been five when they’d both joined the FDNY after high school, and eight when Rory died. Finn Hulain was family to Charlie, though the years since 9/11 had seen him pull away. “Finn, Liam didn’t set that fire.”

  “I hope you’re right, but you know I have to talk to him. You found him naked in a vacant apartment. So maybe he didn’t start it. But if it hadn’t been for you, he’d be dead. So what I think is that maybe he didn’t set it, but he could have been the target. One way or the other, he’s got information.”

  “What if you don’t believe the stuff he has to tell you?”

  “What aren’t you telling me?”

  “A bunch. And it’s beyond weird. Remember that closet?”

  “Yeah, I’m having it taken apart and brought in. While it may not be evidence, it’s beautiful. I’m pretty sure it was made by Alex Nevus’s mom. In going through the files, it seems she was an artist, and mentally ill. Which might explain how fucking strange it is.”

  Charlie wondered how much Finn could take. He blew out a stream of air and went for it. “What if the stuff inside is real?”r />
  Finn shook his head. “You high? I mean, seriously.”

  “I don’t even know where to start, Finn. So let me give you the parts you’ll believe and can check out. From there, if you want more, you’re coming with me down the rabbit hole.”

  “Okay, Alice.”

  “No, I’m not Alice… but I’ve a feeling we’re going to meet her before this is over. Her name is Alice Nevus, by the way. She and her brother Alex… Alex Nevus, lived in that apartment and moved out about two years ago.”

  “I know… the kid on that singing show.”

  “Yes, and I had no clue you liked talent shows.”

  “Charlie, there’s a lot of stuff you don’t know about me.” His expression clouded. “Stuff that died with Rory, and now is not the time.”

  Charlie read the pain on Finn’s face at the mention of his brother. A thought skittered to mind, and before he could censor it, he blurted, “Were you in love with Rory?”

  Finn flushed. It happened in the beat of his heart, from his neck all the way up his ears and his cheeks—beet red in the way only the superpale can do. He turned away and looked out his window at the station.

  “I’m sorry,” Charlie said. “Not my business.”

  “Yeah, it kind of is,” Finn said, unable to make eye contact. “Yes… I loved Rory. And growing up, when I didn’t start to like girls and realized I wanted to be more than best friends… yeah, I loved… and was in love with Rory.”

  “Were you guys…?”

  Finn turned to Charlie. “No. Rory wasn’t gay. He knew I was. I never told him how I felt. There was no point. I didn’t want to risk our friendship.”

  “That sucks.”

  “It does, it did, but not as much as losing him. So there,” Finn said. “The thing I don’t share with another soul is yours, Charlie. Now return the favor. Call Liam.”

  “He doesn’t have a phone.”

  “Of course not, because you’re going to tell me he walked out of that closet and….” Finn stopped. “Shit, no, Charlie. You’re not going to tell me that closet is a portal to… whatever crazy mind painted that closet.”