“Someone’s tired,” Lockwood said in a way that told me that he was annoyed that I had opened my mouth in the first place.
“Someone’s boyfriend is dying, and therefore, she’s taking it out on those closest to her,” Iona said.
“You don’t have to say it so starkly,” I said, trying to ignore the swelling fear inside me. “And why are all these mythical, paranormal people and creatures clustered up around Tampa? I went my whole life without seeing any vampires or werewolves or witches and boom—now in the space of months, more than I can shake a stick at. Or a stake at.”
“Tampa's not that unusual as cities go,” Iona said. “There's not an abnormal amount of paranormal activity here over other cities of similar size.”
“So there are people like the Oracle everywhere?” I asked.
“She’s…a bit different,” Lockwood said.
“She doesn’t actually live in Tampa,” Iona said, glancing at me in the mirror. “There are other portals to access her in different parts of the state, or the planet. There’s actually one in a bathroom at Disney World. You just go in the stall and leave your body behind until you come back. Makes it a little awkward if you do it around closing time. You might wake up in jail, or a hospital.”
“Okay, but why Ikea?” I said.
“It's kind of a two-way portal,” Iona said, “and she likes the meatballs, I guess.”
We made our way out of the city heading north. There was a lot less development up here. The city and all its lights were behind us, and now we were surrounded by farms, sprawling cookie cutter developments, and a lot more open sky.
“So, Lockwood...” Iona said. “Who's this person you're taking us to go see?”
Lockwood suppressed a shiver. “He’s a faerie.”
“Wow, way to sound excited about that,” I said. “You’re talking about him like you did about Orianna when we first met her.”
“Orianna?” Iona asked.
“An Unseelie that we met during our recent sojourn in Faerie,” Lockwood said.
“Why would you have been associated with an Unseelie?” Iona asked. “Admittedly, I'm not expert on Faerie having never been invited—”
“Vampires are not welcome in Faerie,” Lockwood said.
“—but I didn't think an Unseelie would cross the line to deal with you two.”
“You seem surprisingly well-versed in the politics of Faerie,” Lockwood said, raising an eyebrow at Iona. “And far more interested in this than most other topics, I note.”
“It’s because there’s drama,” I said. “And Iona likes to rub it in my face when I make bad decisions.”
“You make so very many of them, though,” Iona said. “And I'm not even counting Forehead in this, because I'm sensitive and wouldn't want to mention him as a terrible, terrible choice while he's ailing—oops.” She puckered her lips. “Uh, Lockwood, why don't you tell me all about this Faerie adventure you two went on without even asking me if I'd like to come along?”
Lockwood rolled his eyes. But he told her anyway.
I sat in the back seat, only half listening to them, staring out of the window and up at the starry sky. It was way easier to see the stars out here. In the city, I could never see them. Back in my home in rural New York, I could see them all every night.
I hadn’t realized how much I had missed it.
There was so much about my life that had changed, but to have something comforting like the presence of the stars over my head, along with some constellations that I recognized, sort of gave me the chance to mentally check out, and just let my mind wander and be lulled into a passive state.
It didn’t last long, though. It never did, these days.
“Turn here,” Lockwood said. I sat up with a jerk as we exited on a dirt road with a thump when the tires left the pavement. We bumped along through the dark, headlights revealing potholes as big as ones I would see after a harsh winter in the north.
“Where are we going?” I asked.
“To a place where the veil is thin between Earth and Faerie,” Lockwood said. “Somewhere humans don’t want to tread.”
Well, that made it sound a lot more ominous than I would have liked.
“Couldn’t people just walk onto this guy’s property?” I asked, looking around. “This seems like a relatively normal rural road to me.”
As we pulled up, swarms of gnats flittered around the swamp outside, visible in the streaks of moonlight that made their way through moss-covered trees. An owl hooted on a distant branch as I stepped out into the warm, wet air. The breeze was still this far inland, and I was already starting to itch thinking about the gnats.
It was a swamp, all right, just like I was told that all of old Florida used to be. Crickets and frogs chirped to each other. I could just make out the glint of starlight off the still surface of a pond, between blooms of algae. And rising up off a hummock in the distance sat a little wooden shack, bathed in moonlight.
Bubbles in the murky water made me leery. I had read somewhere that alligators lived in every body of water in Florida.
“Oh, this is disgusting,” I said, staring out at the little hut. “You can’t be serious, Lockwood. Wait—this is a glamour, isn't it? Or an un-glamour?” I paused, searching for the word. “Whatever, this is an unglamorous a setting as I can imagine. There's really a fae mansion somewhere ahead, right? Not a...” I glanced at the shack. “...uh...whatever that is.”
“No. He is…unconventional, for one of my kind,” Lockwood said. “Let’s just get this over with.”
The air was sticky, even at midnight, and I swatted at the bugs that made a bee-line right for my face, with little success.
Lockwood snapped his fingers, and the bugs seemed to have suddenly lost interest in me.
“What’d you do?” I asked.
“Made you invisible to them.” Lockwood said. “Or your scent, at least.”
“That is just the nicest way of saying I haven't bathed since Faerie,” I said. “Iona, you should take lessons in how to talk smooth from Lockwood.”
“Hey, my manners are just fine,” Iona said. “For example, I haven't once mentioned that you stink like a rotting cesspool.” She was staring warily at a small barn on another hummock of earth in the swampy ground, surrounded by a rickety, broken fence. Several goats were outside, grazing on the swamp grass.
“Um…why does he have goats?” I asked as one lifted its head from the grass, chewing lazily.
“That's a question you probably don't want to know the answer to,” Lockwood said.
“Something is not right here,” I said, pinching my nose and trying to waft the smell away from me. Everything stunk of wet earth and animal feces.
“You don’t even know the half of it,” Lockwood said. And he started across the rickety bridge made of wooden two-by-fours tied together with zip-ties toward the little shack. With each step the boards shifted, sagging into the swamp water.
Every horror movie I’d ever watched started flashing through my mind, and all my instincts told me to run. I half expected some masked crazy person with a chainsaw to pop out from around the back of the shack and start chasing us, our screaming dying in the night air as the chainsaw motor drowned us out.
But I forced my imagination to chill and was grateful that I was between Iona and Lockwood as we made our way across the wobbly walkway, my shoes getting progressively wetter as we went.
We walked up to the door, steps squeaking under the pressure of our weight, and Lockwood knocked three times.
There was no answer.
I looked at Iona, who had folded her arms, almost like she was constrained by an invisible straight jacket. She looked mad enough to spit. If she knew something that I didn’t, it'd be nice if she'd give voice to it.
Flickering light shone out of the windows. “Maybe he’s not home?” I asked, more hopeful than not.
“No, he’s here,” Lockwood said. He rolled up the sleeve of his shirt, and the silvery star tattoo o
n his wrist signifying that he was a Seelie suddenly glowed. Lockwood pressed the underside of his wrist against the doorknob, and there was a soft click from inside. He pushed the door open, and I nearly gagged, covering my mouth with my hands.
“This place stinks of blood.” Iona’s nose wrinkled. She paused and blinked, a little furtively. “Do you think he'll have extra for a hungry guest?”
“He wanted to know my allegiance before allowing us in,” Lockwood said, his face paling. “Come. Let's go.” And he stepped inside.
Hoping to get a good gasp of fresh-ish, swamp air before the blood smell took over, I took a deep breath, held it, and followed him into the creepy shack.
Chapter 30
The swamp shack was tiny, cramped, and made up of one room and a closed door, which I realized was a bathroom. Rickety bookcases stacked to the ceiling with old, worn leather tomes. A twin bed was squeezed into the corner, the faded, worn blankets askew over white linens. A couple of black cats were curled up into tiny balls there, sleeping. Two others were grooming themselves on the patched couch that ran along the wall near the door, and another pair were hovering over their food bowls beside the black mini-fridge that was propping up a convection oven.
My eyes were watering as I tried to not inhale the smell too deeply. Blood? All I smelled was cat pee, and I debated about breathing through my mouth. A pile of dirty dishes filled the small washing basin beside the mini fridge, and I watched with disgust as little flies buzzed around them.
“Are you sure that’s blood?” I asked. “I only smell a ripe litter box.”
“Definitely blood,” Iona said, moving a dirty pair of socks wadded up on the floor with the tip of her combat boots.
Lockwood was standing near the doorway outside as if he were ready to bolt, possibly after shoving me out first.
“What kind of blood?” I asked, wondering if there might be a dead body underneath the stack of old newspapers piled up in the overflowing trashcan.
“Animal blood,” Iona said. “I'd take some, if offered. Any old port in a storm at this point, y'know.”
“What kind of animal?” I asked.
She gave me a quizzical look and gave the air a sniff. “All kinds.”
“All? Even zebra?” I asked.
“I’m sure if this psychopath could get his hands on a zebra, he'd probably sacrifice it, based on the level of stink in this place,” Iona said.
There was a sudden, harsh laugh that rang through the silence as a back door that I had completely missed behind some hanging shirts banged open, and a figure stepped inside.
“That’s funny. Sacrifice a zebra? What do you think this is, Venezuela?” He cackled. “But no, I would definitely sacrifice a zebra. If I could.”
Instinctively, I reached up into my hair for my stake, but lowered it as the man behind the laugh stepped inside.
He had wings. Dark blue wings like midnight. And I could see them. I had known he was a faerie, but he actually looked like one. On Earth, no less. That meant that he didn’t wear a glamour like Lockwood did. Hair as black as coal hung all the way to his shoulders, shaggy and untidy. He was wearing something like what Lockwood had worn in Faerie; a dark tunic, leather boots, and a wide, black belt. In his hands he carried a large, swollen frog by the leg.
“Zebras are so rare, though. It makes me wonder if the scarcity of the creature would have any effect on the magical properties…” His eyes were red like rubies as he lost himself in thought for a moment, then flashed us a wide, toothy smile as he closed the back door. The cats scattered as he made his way over to the sink, dumping the frog inside on the stack of soiled plates. It tried to leap out, but he grabbed it in midair. “No, no, friend. Your spleen is needed for the—”
He hesitated, and turned to stare at us as if it had just registered for the first time that we were standing there in his living room…bedroom…kitchen?
“Sorry, can I help you?” he asked. “I mistook you for spirits come back to complain about how wretched your afterlife is.” He turned back around and slapped the squirming frog onto a wooden cutting board on edge of the sink. He waved his hand in the air and a knife appeared in his grip. He brought it down gently, obscuring his work at the cutting board with his body.
I swallowed heavily.
“We are sorry to disturb you, Nex,” Lockwood said. “My name is Lockwood. I am—”
“I know who you are,” he said with a wave of his knife, not even turning around.
I was glad that his back was to me and that he was blocking my view of whatever he was doing to that frog. Though the noises allowed my imagination to run wild in the worst ways. I hope that he had killed it first.
“I saw you all were coming,” Nex said. “And promptly forgot about it in the midst of my little project.” He tossed something through the air that landed on top of the old newspapers with a splat.
I forced myself not to look.
“But the divination failed to tell me more than the bare details. I don't know much about you, other than you're a goody-goody Seelie,” Nex said, his shimmering red eyes turning to Lockwood, pointing at him with the end of the knife, which was dripping with...well. You know.
I held my breath, fighting back a gag.
“…And that you're a vampire,” he said, his crimson eyes lingering over Iona. “And a rather unhappy one, at that. You’ve had a nasty little afterlife, haven’t you?”
Iona’s glower deepened, but she said nothing.
Nex looked over his other shoulder and met my gaze, red eyes aglow. It was like the first time I had met Orianna. A faerie’s gaze was mesmerizing. Almost as if I could get lost in them forever…
“A human? Why did you drag her along? Is she your personal vending machine?” Nex asked, glancing at Iona.
“I wish,” Iona said. “Do you have any non-frog blood you could spare? Maybe something from a pig? Or a gorilla, they seem pretty similar to humans.”
Nex shrugged. “The most recent mammal I slaughtered was a couple days ago, so...no.”
Iona's face fell. “You don't anything fresher than that?”
“What does this place look like to you?” Nex asked. “A Whole Bloods Market?”
“Going by the outside alone, I'd say...Kmart,” Iona said.
“That's hateful.” Nex's smile vanished. He popped something into his mouth. I pretended it was gum to avoid vomiting.
Iona crossed her arms and glared at Lockwood. “Still think my choice was worse?”
Lockwood sighed.
Nex turned his back on us, dumped everything else from the frog into the overflowing sink and wiped his hands on his tunic. He brushed past me and sank down onto his bed, letting out a long, drawn out sigh as the cats all woke up in a hurry, hissed, and bolted to the opposite side of the shack. One of them retreated between my legs, making me jump in surprise.
Nex stretched out like a sultan on his throne, surrounded by dirty clothes and everything else covered in a layer of dust. “So, let's get down to this so I can get on with life. What do you want? Fortune telling? I do bone casting as well as entrails.” He narrowed his eyes at me. “So...what is going on in your little, insignificant life that being friends with a vampire and a Seelie can’t fix?”
I took a deep breath, balling my shaking hands into fists. “It’s my boyfriend…” I said. “He’s a vampire.”
“Oh?” Nex said, sitting up a little straighter. His red eyes narrowed, and a smile stretched over his thin face. “A human and a vampire. So very Twilight. I like it. Go on.” He urged me along with a wave of his hands.
“He’s been hexed,” I said. “By a witch.”
“Earth magic,” Nex said, glancing up at Lockwood. “Did you try cleansing the—”
“I’ve tried everything,” Lockwood said in a sharp tone. “Anything that you would suggest, I’ve tried.”
“Oh?” Nex said, a new glint in his eye. “What about—”
“Anything that a proper Seelie Paladin would try.” Lo
ckwood said, cutting him off. “Which is why we have come here.” He stiffened. “I was wondering if perhaps there were some avenues...beyond the proper.”
Nex chuckled. “Ohhhh, this is tasty. Some sort of irreversible, love-sick revenge spell?”
“Something like that, yeah,” I said. “The spell was ordered by someone so powerful that I can’t kill them. And it’s the only way to cure the hex.”
Nex rose to his feet, clapping. “Ooh, that's good magic. Yes, all right. Now you’re speaking my language.”
He raced over to one of the book shelves and started pulling tomes off the shelf, flipping them open, and tossing them over his shoulder. I ducked out of the way, the three of us moving to stand closer to the wall. Books were flying through the air, cats were spitting in rage, meowing angrily and seeking cover. Soon, a dozen shining eyes glowered at us from under the bed.
“This is blood magic territory,” Nex said, tossing another book.
I leaned out of the way as it came barreling toward me, my heart skipping a beat.
“Obviously, you were right in coming to me,” he said, skimming another book, this one with a moldy green coating on the edges of the pages.
“So…can I cure him without killing Draven?” I asked.
Nex looked up at me. “Draven? The Lord of the Tampa territory? He’s the one who commanded the spell?” He dissolved into laughter, then snapped the book shut. “This just gets better and better.” He replaced the book on the shelf and turned back to me, his arms open in welcome.
“Well, I have some good news for you, little human child. You can certainly cure your boyfriend.”
Relief washed over me. “Thank you. How—”
Nex's eyes flashed. “All it requires...is for you to sacrifice your life for him.”
Her Lying Days Are Done Page 18