by Molly Harper
Jillian took the plate and scooted it across her desk, cradling it like a newborn against her chest. “Oh, no. This is my pie. You should go get your own.”
“That’s not nice.”
“I wasn’t trying to be nice,” Jillian said, taking a big bite of pie.
Dani’s eyes narrowed. “You’re diabolical.”
Jillian grinned broadly. “Just do yourself a favor, when Siobhan says it’s better to let her choose, believe her.”
“Why wouldn’t I be able to choose my own pie?”
“Just let Siobhan choose. Trust me, it saves time. If you choose your own pie, you’ll only be disappointed.”
“That’s cryptic.”
Jillian smacked her lips. “Yep.”
Dani accepted her pie-denial with a modicum of grace, she thought, and carried her new books down the street to the Boone Mercantile and Grocery. She’d expected some little bodega-style market, but to her surprise, the store offered a pretty impressive range of ethnic foods, from lutefisk to guava soda. She imagined that was due to the wide spectrum of cultures and tastes represented in the Bayou. Cultures that she was apparently going to have to figure out on her own, without asking a lot of direct questions.
Dani had to be careful about how she ate. She wasn’t so much worried about weight management, but the fewer processed foods and chemicals in her system, the better she was able to perform. So as much as it pained her, she’d given up her beloved diet soda and Sno-balls. She rarely drank coffee anymore. But she was going to eat as much pie as she damn well pleased, because as far as she was concerned, sugar was a natural substance that kept people around her from getting injured.
Fortunately, the health food section of the store was equally impressive, so she was able to find almost all of the ingredients she needed to stay reasonably fed. She stopped in the baking section and stocked up on spices and staples. She had a feeling she was going to need some chocolate and coconut sugar cookies, even if they weren’t a good substitute for real Girl Scout cookies. The produce section, tagged with a sign that said, “Proudly grown on local farms!” was stocked with over-sized, beautiful fruits and vegetables. She stocked up on strawberries the size of her fist, but noticed that all of the apple baskets were empty.
She frowned, staring down at the empty bushels. She had really been looking forward to some fresh apples. There were no Granny Smiths in Outer Mongolia.
“Apparently, they sell out of the apples really fast.”
Dani turned to find a tall, gorgeous blond man with a jawline like a ruler standing behind her. He was giving her a sympathetic look while holding up a bag of Bartlett pears the size of softballs.
“I’m not a pear person,” said Dani. “They’re too soft. As a fruit, that seems so non-committal.”
He snickered, his blue eyes crinkling behind black square-framed glasses. “Well, we’re fighting the entire town for supply. Apparently, this shifter lady grows them near a whole complex of bee hives and between the cross-pollination and the weird mojo in the air, they’re enormous and taste like the original apple of Hesperides.”
“That’s probably a reference I should understand, but I’ve been living in a yurt for the last six months,” Dani said.
“Well, that’s considerably cooler than my nerdy Greek mythology reference. I’m Rob Aspern, head of the League’s remote advanced math department. I’ve been spending too much time with the guys over in cultural anthropology.”
Dani extended her hand for a shake. “Danica Teel, independent consultant for the League, head of nothing. Advanced math has its own department?”
“Well, it’s me and one other guy,” Rob conceded. “But he has to use blue Post-It notes if I tell him to. So . . . yeah, I’m a pretty big deal.”
“You’re right, that does deserve its own department.”
“Nice to meet you.” Rob shook her hand and gave her a smile that had to be the product of expensive orthodontia and possibly a demonic bargain. “But in all seriousness, it has to be sort of nice, not to have to share your office space with anyone, right? Tell me of a room unoccupied by someone else’s crappy Spotify play lists or stinky yerba mate tea? Is it beautiful there?”
“I actually haven’t seen it yet.”
“What?”
“I just got into town and I’ve been more focused on settling in.”
“You clearly don’t understand the inner workings of the League. Your office space is a physical representation of your status,” he said. “How will other people know that you are very important unless you have a window? Or ten square feet more than they do?”
Dani nodded. “I have much to learn.”
“Well, my door is always open.”
“Is it near a window?”
Rob wriggled his eyebrows. “Yes, it is.”
Dani moved toward the check-out station. “Well, it was nice to meet you, Rob.”
“You, too. Um, some of the employees have a regular Saturday night get together over at the ‘residency court.’ If you like card games and mediocre food, stop on by.”
“Thanks, that’s really nice of you.” Dani pushed her cart to the checkout, where a bored teenager with a remarkable lip ring and blue-green hair scanned her groceries.
“Just so you know, when that guy says ‘card games,’ he doesn’t mean, like, poker,” the girl said.
“Does he mean strip poker?” Dani asked.
The girl shuddered. “Worse. Magic: The Gathering.”
“You have done me a great service.” Dani handed the girl a hundred dollar bill for eighty-two dollars’ worth of groceries. “Keep the change.”
5
Zed
She was on her computer again. Zed had no idea what Dani was doing that required so much computer time. He always thought witches spent their time in the open-air communing with sunlight or some such thing. But he’d worked at the maison every morning for a week, and she hadn’t so much as asked for the location of the faille. She mostly read and worked on her computer, occasionally taking breaks to offer him something to drink or sit on her front porch swing for what she called “meditation naps.”
Zed wasn’t making much progress with Dani’s shower because it turned out that he was not nearly as handy as he usually was when he was distracted by the sight of Dani through her back window. Damn near everything she did was adorable, from the way she got a little line between her dark brows when she was reading to the way she cursed under her breath when she messed up her hunt-and-peck typing.
He was going to have to ask this girl out on a real date or he was going to wind up with a restraining order. And considering that he was the highest authority in town, it was going to be really awkward to sign a restraining order against himself.
Dani emerged from the house in a pair of shorts and a tank top with a llama dancing across the chest. Her long, shapely legs were on full display in the heat, and he couldn’t help but notice the little constellation of dark freckles right over her left knee, that bore a striking resemblance to Ursa Major.
She asked, “You all done for the day?”
“Yeah, I got a bit done.”
Dani seemed to be eying the shower skeptically. “Okay.”
“Are you heading over to the boil my maman’s hosting tonight, cher? It’ll be the best food you’ve ever had for the low, low price of small talk and being reviewed as possible dating material by all the matchmaking grannies in town.”
Dani pulled a reluctant face. “I was thinking about just staying in for the night. I’ve got some work I need to catch up on.”
“Is it anything that you absolutely couldn’t put off until another night? Because most of your coworkers are going to be there. It’s a big welcome for all the personnel working in the bayou, a good chance for you to get to know your coworkers, put your best foot forward, and all that.”
She chewed on her soft lip. “Normally, I would be all about it, but I just got to a critical point I’m trying to make.”
&nb
sp; “There will be pie. Lots of pie. Magical pie.”
She grinned. “Isn’t all pie magical?”
“This pie has something extra. You’ll have to see for yourself.”
Dani sighed, then laughed. “This better be some amazing pie.”
Zed changed into the fresh shirt he’d saved in his saddlebag while Dani freshened up. She emerged from the house, wearing form-fitting jeans and a purple t-shirt that said, “Como se llama?” next to a dancing alpaca. Her long dark hair wound around her head in a shining coil. She’d accentuated her full lips with gloss the color of ripe strawberries. He loved strawberries.
“Any chance you’ll let me drive this baby sometime?” she asked as he handed her the spare helmet.
“Probably not, but if you hop on, I will fulfill all of my pie promises.”
Dani’s smile grew even wider as she whipped her leg over the seat. “Fair enough.”
As impressive as it might have been to speed out of the driveway, he took the long winding gravel path at a reasonable rate that wouldn’t risk tossing gravel. And it gave Zed a chance to savor the way Dani’s arms wound around his waist, while he shouted over the grind of the engine, “What have you been typing away on in there? I thought your work was more physical.”
“Just a bit of academic writing. The urge to publish is hereditary, you might say.”
“Are you working on your PhD, too?” he asked.
“No, there’s no such thing as a degree program in my field.”
“Well, that’s a shame.”
“I’m writing what I’m hoping will be the end-all-be-all work on energy rifts. Or at least I hope I am. There aren’t a lot of books written on the subject, and I thought, with the League’s resources, they might get the book into the hands of people who need it. People like me, who are just trying to help.”
Heaven save him from beautiful women who were several times smarter than him. They were apparently his heretofore unknown catnip. Or bear-nip.
Zed’s maman’s yard had never looked so good. The grass, usually a riot of untamed nature, was neatly trimmed into a velvety green carpet. Outlining the property, torches and cheerful paper lanterns were strung between the heavily-laden fruit trees Clarissa planted to keep her bees entertained. The garden, boosted with energy from la faille, was bursting with spiky bee balm in stunning pinks and purples, broken up by patches of hardy pink coneflower, magenta foxglove, and bright lemon yellow snapdragons. The bees hummed sleepily in their sturdy box hives. If he knew his maman, she’d had a stern pre-party talking-to with each swarm’s queen warning her of the consequences of attacking the guests. (Maman would plant nothing but stinkweed in the garden for the next three years.)
The magique seemed to have decided as a whole that their new neighbors were going to have to get to know them warts and all. The few merfolk the bayou could boast were doing the backstroke in the water beyond the grass, their rainbow fins flashing in the late afternoon sun. Fairy wings were unfurled, gossamer and glistening. Little kids scampered around the lawn in their shifter forms, wolf cubs and lion cubs and tiny bears. Bael was in full dragon form, huge and golden, keeping the cooking fires burning. While a handful of League employees were shifters, the new humans looked somewhat uncomfortable dealing with real live magique, as opposed to paperwork. But they were making an effort at polite conversation, and generally being sociable, so that was a good sign.
The whole town had turned out in force to welcome the League employees, shifters and fae folk and humans alike. There was so much food that Clarissa had divided it into stations. Gumbo bubbled over a fire in Bonita De Los Santos’ iron pot. Another little rock-ringed campfire heated a giant pot of red beans and rice. Earl Webster was overseeing the roasting of several cochon de lait—suckling pigs, turning on spits over the flames—something they could only recently reintroduce to the menu after the Warburtons, a family of warthog shifters, moved out of town. Everything was served with cornbread and drowning in butter.
“You weren’t lying, this is food paradise,” Dani whispered to Zed. “Also, there’s a dragon, which you don’t see every day. Or in my case, ever. I mean, Jillian told me there were dragons here, but . . . wow.”
Zed shrugged. “That’s just Bael. Dragonfire is the steadiest cooking heat there is,” he said, gesturing to the pair of police uniform pants secured around the dragon’s leg with elastic. “He’s very polite about keeping his pants on in public.”
“I’m not sure whether to be more excited about the dragons, fairies and mermaids, or the fact that I smell sassafras in the gumbo.”
“It’s a toss-up,” said Zed, noting that one of Bael’s younger relatives had shown up, a rarity on the Mystic Bayou social scene. Ben, the son of one of Bael’s more likeable cousins, was still debating whether to leave for college in the fall, a dilemma often faced by Mystic Bayou’s youth—whether to stay in the protective bubble in a community that accepted their unique nature, or to explore the wider world. The main difference was that Ben’s parents could afford tuition, so Ben’s explorations could take him much further afield.
Bael’s less likable relation, Balfour Boone, had skipped out entirely, instead of his usual habit of inserting his company where it wasn’t wanted. But that probably had something to do with the fact that Jillian was in attendance, and the last time Balfour had gotten mouthy with her, she’d attempted to Tase him in the junk.
Zed spotted another unexpected face manning the rack of boudin smoking over burning applewood. Ash Webster, one of Earl Webster’s boys, had been out of town for the last year, training as a federal Fish and Wildlife officer. Baldric Boone had pulled several strings to get Ash assigned to the district that included Mystic Bayou. It would come in handy when the town was trying to explain some of the odder creature sightings to the drole world.
Clarissa had been careful to arrange the picnic tables in one long continuous row. It was a pointed gesture to remind the League employees that they were all one big community. That they had to work together to accomplish the League’s goals. His maman was the master of unsubtle social engineering.
Normally, maman would have made her famous honey-pecan cake for a fancy dinner, but this was Mystic Bayou, and when more than ten people gathered here, pie was required. Dani dragged Zed toward the pie table, three times Siobhan’s normal pastry display, and he was happy to let her lead him. Her touch was warm against his skin, but not unpleasant, like a low electric hum that skimmed up and down his arm. He wondered if that was part of her gift, or just his response to her.
Siobhan, a squat, cranky brownie who as far as he knew, had no last name, stood guard over her pies like a watch-dog. She did not appreciate little cubs who tried to sneak sweets before dinner, particularly her sweets. She scowled a little as Dani and Zed approached. “No use, Mr. Mayor, your mama made me agree. No dessert until you ate at least one helping of real food. I will not be sweet-talked.”
Zed raised his hands. “I accept defeat, Miss Siobhan. I’ve had your spatula smacked against my hand enough times to know when I’m beat. I just wanted to bring Miss Danica over here to survey the pie and let you get a feel for what sort of pastry she might need.”
“I really don’t get to choose my own pie?” Dani asked.
“Oh, sure, you could pick your own pie, and it would taste fine. But it wouldn’t have that magical spark that Siobhan’s choice will have. It’s a fairy thing. Siobhan makes her pies to soothe a troubled soul, to heal a grieving heart, to ignite romance. She can tell just by looking at you what sort of pie you need. It’s better to let Siobhan choose.”
“What if my soul doesn’t need soothing?” Dani asked.
Zed’s smoky eyes twinkled. “Then she’ll sense what your soul does need and give you that instead.”
“Well, how do I turn down an offer like that?” Dani smiled at Siobhan. “I’ll be back to visit you after dinner.”
“See that you do. You need more than you think.” Siobhan sniffed, nodding toward the hou
se. “That one didn’t think she needed my guidance and she regretted it.”
Zed turned to see Jillian walking into his maman’s backyard. She was damn near glowing at the side of the Asian man who seemed familiar to Zed somehow. Jillian was chatting animatedly with him, pointing to the various food stations. Zed glanced toward Bael, who did not move between Jillian and the unknown male, despite being in his dragon form.
Zed was about to cross the grass to ask about the man when a whippet thin girl with dark hair and pale skin popped into view like a damn ghost in an internet meme. The girl dressed in unrelieved black and the way she stared at Dani made Zed a little nervous. He liked to think the shriek he let loose was a manly sound of warning, but it sounded like,
“Gah!”
“Hi, I’m Ivy Portenoy. I’m a lab assistant in the forensics department. Did Dani mention me?”
Zed frowned. The girl who looked like Wednesday Addams worked for the newly installed county coroner? Did his beloved Jillian have no sense of irony?
“No, I hadn’t had the chance to bring you up in conversation, Dr. Portenoy. How are you?” Dani was keeping her social shit together in a much more impressive fashion, extending her hand and greeting Ivy with a handshake.
“Oh, you have to call me Ivy now, Dani. We’re practically old friends. Have you had a chance to think about game night, Dani? Dr. Aspern mentioned he’d invited you.”
Dani looked vaguely uncomfortable. “Oh yes, I’m not really much of a card game person.”
“Well, we’d love to have you come by on Saturday, even if you don’t play.”
“Actually, Dani has plans on Saturday,” Zed cut in.
Dani nodded, flashing a grateful look at Zed. “Yes, important parish-League cooperative business.”
“Very important.”
“Well, we’ll just have to catch you some other time, then,” said Ivy.
“Maybe,” Dani replied.
Ivy nodded at them both and filtered back to the other League employees.