by Eli Constant
With each word, my heart was falling further into my stomach. I’d sent Liam to break into a house that’s securer than the constitution at the National Archives. Liam, are you okay?
He doesn’t respond. My heart lands in my stomach.
“I told them there’d be paperwork to process and asked them to come to the station on Monday. I’m not sure if we’ll be able to get them separated for questioning. Doctor Sherwin made it clear that anything that had to be handled, he’d be there to support her.”
“I think I can help in that department, woman-to-woman, see if I can get her to open up about Timothy, see if I can break through the delusion a little bit.”
“That’s what I was thinking. Makes sense for you to be there, you’re handling the funeral and consulting with the coroner on when the body will be ready. You want to make sure you can get them the information on the time of the service and such, in case they change their minds and want to come.”
I’m nodding absentmindedly. “Yeah. And you pull Doctor Sherwin aside for paperwork. They sound like the sort of couple where he’d have power of attorney on her. Does that work like that? I only know how that pertains to the funeral business.”
“Even if it doesn’t, I can spin it so it seems to work that way. Have him do the paperwork and if it’s wrong, say it was an honest mistake and pull her back in.”
“Great, I’m clear on Monday. What time are they coming?”
“After his last patient at two. With the drive and such, I expect them around three, three-thirty.”
“I’ll be there.”
“Thanks, Tori.”
“No problem.”
I hit the end button. Liam, are you there? Liam?
A knock at the door makes me jump.
“I’ll get it.” When I turn around, Kyle’s already walking to the door. When he opens it, Liam walks through the door. “Evening, Liam.”
“Evening.” I’m fine, Victoria. There’s an awful lot of concern flowing in your mind.
Concern for a friend.
I can almost taste his exasperation, so strong is it voiced in my head.
“Listen, thanks for being here for Tori earlier. I don’t like that I can’t remember what happens when I transform.” Kyle pushes the word ‘transform’ out and doesn’t stumble over it. He’s coming to terms, little by little, with what he is. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or a bad thing.
“I’ll always be there for her, when she needs me. It seems to be both of our plights in life.”
Kyle looks at Liam. Liam looks at Kyle. Energy comes alive in the room. It feels like… an animalistic rage versus the power of pure, unadulterated light.
And for a moment, I think I’m going to have a déjà vu moment. But this time, instead of a dwarf and a law man playing at fisticuffs, it’ll be a berserker and a fae. For a maniacal moment, I wonder who would win and how interesting of a match up it would be.
But only for a moment.
“Yes, thank you for running Braeden off. Both of you. I don’t think I would have survived that particular encounter with my little brother without your help.”
Kyle and Liam turn away from each other and I can tell it takes some effort. The energy, the palpable promise of fight, dies down a fraction. It continues to decrease as I wave towards the living room sofa and chair, inviting them both to sit. I sit first though—in the chair, so they won’t go through the motions of trying to figure out who was going to sit next to me.
See, I can problem-solve all on my own sometimes.
We all sit awkwardly for a while. It’s obsidian outside, the sliver of a moon and the twinkle of stars masked by the heavy clouds that have momentarily broken from delivering their constant, uninterrupted, falling of snow.
“If you’re hungry, there’s plenty of fish.” When I say it, it occurs to me that I’m sitting staring at my very own plenty of fish. Fish in the sea. Men on my sofa. Love to go around. And I laugh.
God, I laugh.
I laugh and I laugh and I laugh until everything hurts and I’m crying.
When I finally control myself, my current beau and my would-be beau are staring at me uncomfortably.
“Sorry, I just had this whole inner thought moment. Something not very funny, but it just hit me exactly right. You know? Square in the funny bone.” I wait for one of them to respond. Neither of them do. Stellar loves of my life, they are—not even throwing me a life vest when I’m clearly drowning in my own idiocy. “So, fish. Anyone want some?”
“That would be wonderful.”
“Yeah, I’ll have some.”
Kyle and Liam respond simultaneously, their words and voices threading together in a strange amalgam of sound that almost seems right.
“Great, coming right up then. Fair warning though, I have zero condiments that go with fish, no bread item, and I’m clean out of coleslaw. I’ve got plain old white bread and mayo if you’d like to make a fish sandwich though? I might even have some lettuce buried. Shouldn’t be too wilted.”
“Just the fish.” Liam says as Kyle stands up and begins to follow me.
“I can make my own sandwich, Tori. Don’t worry about me.”
I turn around and smile. “You always worry about the people you love, Kyle.”
Kyle’s face lights up with a full-out grin. I flash a look at Liam, still sitting on the couch. He is not smiling. He is not even looking at us. He’s staring out the window and I wonder what he is thinking. Not for the first time, I think that I hate that this whole ‘mental conversing’ thing seems to be under his control. I’d like to delve into his mind uninvited once and a while.
As Kyle’s making his sandwich, my phone rings again. I look down, not recognizing the number. As a general rule, I don’t answer numbers I don’t recognize, but this time I make an exception. “Hello, you’ve reached Victoria Cage of Cage’s funeral home.”
“Um, yeah, hey, Kyle there?” the voice is deep and guttural. There’s a catch in his words that almost speaks of a disability or deformation.
“Can I ask who’s calling?”
“It’s Mikey, from the bar.”
“Oh, Mikey! Sorry, I didn’t recognize your voice. Sure, he’s right here.” I hand Kyle the phone, my eyebrow quirked up in question. He places a hand over the receiver and holds it against his chest.
“Sorry about that. He couldn’t reach me one night and panicked, so I gave him your number.”
“Totally fine.”
“Hey, Mikey, I’m so sorry I disappeared earlier. I had a family emergency.” Kyle falls quiet as Mikey responds on the other end. “Jesus, Mikey. You know you can’t drink on the job.”
Mikey raises his voice enough that I can hear the murmur of it as I stand leaning against the sink eating fish smashed on a folded piece of white bread and slathered with way too much mayo and salt.
“I’ll be right there.” Kyle pauses to listen again. “No, you can’t drive home. Go in my office and crash on the couch.” Another pause. “Mikey, I’m not going to fire you.”
I can hear the other man sobbing on the other end.
“Everyone messes up, Mikey. Just relax. You said no one’s at the bar right now. Just close up and I’ll be there soon.” Kyle hangs up and hands me over the phone.
“Sorry, something’s set him off. You going to be okay?” His gaze flits from me to Liam, who’s still staring out the window in silence.
“Yes, I’m fine. Liam and I have some talking to do anyways.”
“About him helping you with your powers, I hope.”
I nod. “Yeah. Better now than later, don’t you think?”
“Definitely.”
I feel bad letting Kyle think I only want to talk to Liam about teaching me control, but he doesn’t need to know more than he already does about the case and what’s going on. He can stay firmly in bare-minimum-land where it’s safer.
I walk Kyle downstairs and kiss him in the frigid air wafting through the door he’s already opened. His car i
s parked beneath the carport, where my Bronco normally is, and he doesn’t have to clean any snow off to drive. “I really miss my baby.” I sigh, staring over his shoulder as we hug.
“I’m right here, Tori.”
“Not you, you know how I feel about pet names. I’m talking about my car.”
“I thought you had it towed already?”
I pull back away from him. “No? Why’d you think that?”
“Because I saw some guy hooking it up to a truck and pulling it away the other day. He didn’t look like the city contractor.”
“Dammit.” I fight the urge to stamp my feet. “I waited too damn long. It was probably the city and now it’s going to be sunk down in the mud in that nasty impounds lot.”
“It really didn’t look like the guy who does the city work. This truck was dark green with some cream writing on the side, but I don’t remember what it said. Something like…Louise or Louisa. Maybe a ‘D’ thrown in.”
I freeze, mouth falling open. It takes me a moment to stutter out the words. “Do you mean Louis D. Taxidermy?” I taste dread in my mouth like sulfuric acid ready to burn divots in my tongue.
“Yeah, that was the name. Thought maybe he was a friend?”
“No. Not a friend.” My mouth droops, curved into an unhappy, stoic line. “Definitely not a friend, Kyle.”
Mordecai Jones. Taxidermist ex-con. Drinker of djinn juice. A damn dwarf who, in his own words, never wanted to see me again.
Well, stealing a woman’s car is a surefire way to see her face again. Looks like it was my turn in the O.K. Corral with Mister Short and Terrifying.
Nobody touches my Bronco.
Chapter Twenty-Three
“Do you want to come with me or not? I don’t have time to worry about your hurt feelings.” I’m standing in the kitchen, looking at a sullen Liam on the couch. I swear, the fairy goes from seduction express to ‘child with a broken toy’ mode in sixty seconds flat.
He doesn’t respond, so I stamp my way into my bedroom and start yanking on proper pants and a sweater. It’s not until I’ve got my socks and boots on, threading my arms through my jacket, that Liam relents.
“Yes, I’ll go with you. Your first encounter with the dwarf didn’t go well. If you go alone, this time you might get yourself killed.”
I bristle. “Screw you, Liam. I can handle myself.”
“Is that why you and Kyle agreed that I should begin training you? Is that because you can,” He throws his hands up, air quotes a slap in the face, “handle yourself.”
I hate how I blush at everything. Embarrassed? I blush. Pissed? I blush. Horny? I blush. “Just stay here, Liam. I change my mind. I don’t want your company.”
“Too bad. You’re getting it.”
“Have fun walking in the snow.”
He smiles and I want to slap his smug fairy face. “I can run faster than you can drive, Victoria.” He says it like I’m a child and he’s my condescending teacher. I don’t respond. I don’t rise to the bait.
Of course I don’t.
“Well then run the fuck home, Mr. Banishment.” As soon as I say the words, I regret them. Hurt flashes across his face, so quick that it’s nearly a dream of a dream. He gave up his home, his people, for me. “I’m sorry, Liam. I know that I need to learn control, that there’s so much that I don’t know. Come with me, help me get my car back, and keep me from pissing off the hangry King Dwarf. Please.” I add the last as an afterthought and I do my best to make it not sound placating.
“I’m driving,” is all he says as he takes the keys off the wall rack. Before I can protest, he uses his fairy-flitting-fast-fucking power to race down the steps and crank up the black business sedan.
It’s so dark out that the headlamps are the only bit of light surrounding the moving car. It’s a tunnel of night. We don’t talk as we go, save for Liam giving me a few additional dwarf etiquette notes and warnings on how to handle the negotiation of valuable property with a dwarf. Dwarfs like ‘things’. They like stones and jewels and coins. Cars aren’t really something they’d normally go after, but apparently Mordecai had a bone to pick with me. Which I still didn’t understand since he’d basically said his death would be too soon to see me again.
When we pull up to Mordecai’s home and business, a single light is burning in the front window. It’s candle flame, not artificial light. I realize, seeing it, that I didn’t see any power lines or signs of utilities when Terrance and I were out here. It hadn’t dawned on me since I’d been too busy trying to keep the boys from spewing testosterone all over the ground.
“I will approach first, in case this dwarf is more clever than most of his kind and has set traps for unsuspecting visitors.”
I don’t argue; all I can envision is a fedora-wearing guy with a whip racing away from a gigantic boulder. I do get out of the car though, closing the door to lean against and watch Liam walk towards the porch, illuminated by the still-on glow of the headlights. I whisper, my voice carrying across the unsettling quiet of the woods around us. “Be careful, Liam.”
Of course. His voice floats through my mind.
Good. I watch as he mounts the stairs one by one. Were you able to get into the Sherwin’s house today?
No.
Liam raises his hand and knocks on the door. I’m glad he’s left the car on so that the lights do not automatically die after a time. There’s no answer, no diminutive man with an attitude opening the door to spit vitriol at the annoyance on his doorstep. Liam knocks again, more persistent this time. Several rapid ‘tap, tap, taps’ followed by a more forceful ‘bang’.
Still no answer.
But that’s because Mordecai is not in the house. He’s behind me. “Hello again, Blood Queen.”
I whirl around, my coat lifting so the cold air snakes up to seep into my thermal shirt.
Why does it seem like I’m always getting caught with my pants down? Next time I see Terrance, I’m going to finally take him up on those serious self-defense and firearm courses. Not the shitty defense class they offer to folks down at the community fitness center. Terrance is glad I’m taking defense at the Y; he’d pushed me to—because it was a place to start, even if not a great one. But I want the real classes now.
I want the police academy—‘hit them where it really hurts, take that gun in two moves and live another day’—sort of classes. “Mordecai,” I choke on his name.
“I see you got my invitation to visit.”
“Thought you never wanted to see me again.” I cross my arms across my chest and try to look tough. And a split second later, I do feel a hell of a lot tougher… because Liam is standing by my side.
“Dwarf King Mordecaious of Stonewall, it is an honor.” Liam bends at the waist and flourishes his hand like we’re standing in some proper court versus the muddy, snowy driveway of a fallen King turned taxidermist. “I have read stories of you in the great hall at Evershadow. Your kingdom was the mightiest of the mountains. I should have recognized you when the Blood Queen first entered your new realm.”
Mordecai, or Mordecaious of Stonewall (a fucking ridiculous name, if you ask me), stands straight with each word Liam utters. Soon, he has called upon his particular brand of magic to become five feet some inches tall.
“Ah huvnae bin knoon by 'at nam fur some time, far-ee.” Mordecai lapses into the brogue that is his natural voice. “Ah hae business wi' th' bluid queen, nae wi' ye.”
“I am her servant. Where she is, I go.”
“Ye werenae wi' 'er earlier, when she cam intae mah realm withit permission.” Mordecai snarls, his upper lip curling to show soil-stained teeth.
“I was here, just not where you could see me, Dwarf King.” There’s an edge to Liam’s voice now.
Dammit, what was with the men in my life not being able to keep it in their damn pants? I was tired and I didn’t want to play mediator again today. “Mordecai, where’s my car?”
“Ah needed a new engine fur mah truck. yoors did nicely. The re
st of it, will brin' me a fair chunk at th' scrap yard.”
“You took apart my Bronco?” Anger floods through me. My father’s face flits into my mind. He gave me that car. It meant something. “You son of a bitch.” I step toward him, raising my hands into the air, and I begin to call the power. It raged inside of me, like a crimson tide, ready to exit the tips of my fingers and reach, like leeching tendrils, towards Mordecai’s body.
But as soon as the power tries to expel from me towards him, I feel the worst pain of my life. It is what I’d imagine icicles falling from a great height to bore into my brain would feel like. I fall to my knees, clutching my head, crying out in pain.
“Let her go, Dwarf King.” Liam steps around me, I can feel it in the brush of quick wind against my exposed cheeks. But everything else is obscured by the agony.
“Make it stop!” I scream, gripping my hair with both hands and yanking outward. I can feel blood trickling now—from my ears and nose and eyes. “God, make it stop!”
Finally, it does, and I fall gasping to the ground.
“
Noo ye see, bluid queen, 'at Ah hae power, power 'at can droon yer ain. we can bide in harmony ur we can be enemies. Ah dinnae caur either way.”
Liam kneels beside me. “Can you stand?”
I loosen my fingers, letting my scalp untense. The shooting pain is gone. “Yes,” I whisper, knowing that nothing will make me look weaker than I already do. This Dwarf King, living as a common man within the human world, has enough power to break me. I don’t want him for an enemy. I already have one enemy too many.
“Now,” Mordecai’s body begins to shrink downward until he is his normal size again and his voice returns to the affected American accent, “I did not just bring you here because I had a score to settle, Blood Queen. That is done. I have had my pound of flesh. Or pound of metal, as it were.”
“What do you want then, Dwarf King?” I try to sound respectful, yet I only sound broken.
My tone does not faze Mordecai. “The earth has been calling to me, Blood Queen. It tells me of chemicals and blood. It tells me of death.”