by Lyn Brittan
Neither, it turned out. But both together.
This place, this mixture of old and modern—it hit her like a ton of bricks—this was the best representation of his life. Fazil, her Fazil, was as old-fashioned as his homeland and yet forced to exist in these modern times.
“Peanuts?”
“Huh?”
Fazil pointed to a barrel at the edge of the counter. “A dollar a bag. Want one?”
“Is that what people do?”
“That’s what people do.”
He pulled two crumpled dollar bills from his back pocket and shoved them into something labeled in scrawled ink, “The Honest Jar.” Picking up two of the tiniest paper bags in the universe, he used a scoop attached to a length of chain to fill up both bags.
He talked as he scooped, setting up delivery dates and offhandedly introducing her, once again, as his wife.
Sam threw her a nod and then went right back into a less than thrilling discussion of whose cow did what this week. Women hovered outside, but they didn’t concern her nearly as much as Fazil’s earlier call. Yet, here he was going on and on about the weight of a heifer. Who cares about strangers’ cows?
Fazil, apparently.
He nodded, jotted notes, and promised to report something about something to someone on his next visit.
Clearing her throat shut both men up. “Maybe we should check on that thing, honey?”
Sam smirked and tipped his hat, shaking his head apologetically toward a retreating Fazil.
A dog she hadn’t noticed earlier raised his head in acknowledgement of their departure, before flouncing back down. Fazil scratched behind its ears and tossed a tripped-up toy in the air. “Bluetick.”
“What?” She freaked, swatting and brushing off her legs. This caused much amusement to the various flannelled men doing ... totally nothing but sitting and sipping cola.
“The dog, babe.”
“Who names their dog Blue-fricking-tick?” she hissed into his ear.
“It’s a breed.”
“Does the dog have an actual name?”
“Bluetick Smith.”
“I’m done.”
Fazil’s warm laughter made this almost normal. Almost okay. This was his real life. Ranch, animals, small town, the whole bit. It freaked her out for all the wrong reasons.
“I’m in a place where the bakery has an ice cream shop right next door to it. Let me guess, the bakery doesn’t sell ice cream.”
“Correct.”
“And the ice cream shop—”
“Parlor.”
“Of course. The ice cream parlor doesn’t sell baked goods.”
“Correct again. Wouldn’t be right. Ready for the best part?” He waited for her nod, eyes twinkling. “They’re cousins, who inherited the shops from their mothers.”
“Who were sisters?”
“Nailed it.”
She couldn’t stop shaking her head at this place that made Fazil so happy. Then the smile cracked as reality—her wretched reality—swooped in to destroy his small-town Utopia. “So...”
“The phone call?”
“Yeah. I meant what I said, Rosa. Nothing was found.”
“Where?”
“In the apartment.”
* * * *
Kudos to her for holding it together until they got in the car.
The second her door slammed shut, however, she lost her shit. Not that he blamed her. He was halfway there himself. Everything he’d held inside at Sam’s threatened to erupt. “Bodies don’t disappear. Is there something you didn’t tell me? Who else did you go to about this?”
“No and no one! Maybe your contact went to the wrong condo.” She took a deep breath, bottom lip clenched between her teeth. Her long lashes fluttered and her nostrils flared. “I’m scared.”
He wanted to touch her. Grab her and tell her everything would be okay. Like an idiot, he tried, but she flinched at his touch. “Let’s regroup. You killed a man. You left a man. Now there’s no body. That’s all I got.”
Rosa choked out a breath and lay back against the seat. “They’re coming for me.”
“Who?”
“Cops!”
“Calm down, babe. Think about it. The body’s gone and no one’s said anything. He hasn’t shown up as missing.”
“A dead body can’t disappear, Fazil.”
“Exactly. It doesn’t. Are you sure you killed him? I mean, killed him dead?”
“There’s another type of killing?”
“Hell yes, and I do mean that. Look, you weren’t dabbling in any—”
“No!”
“And he wasn’t Other?”
“No. Not that I could tell. Being married to you made me sensitive. Lowercase s. I would have noticed if he had any powers. I’m sure of it. His sole talent was asshole-ism.”
And resurrection.
“What are we going to do?”
Good question and one he didn’t know the answer to. In times like these, there was one option left: lie.
Lie hard.
Lay it down so thick you couldn’t lift your foot from it. “I wouldn’t worry about it.”
She rolled her eyes so hard, he thought her lids would snap. “Sorry? Are you advising we drop it?”
“Of course. Otherwise, we wait for something that might not happen. Maybe you left the door open on the way out and someone robbed him. They got nervous and hid the body.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.” No.
“You’re not just saying that?”
Of course I am. “It’s New York. People steal bodies all the time.”
“I had no idea.”
“Yeah, well, it’s not something the city’s proud of. Promise me you won’t stress about this.”
A sigh signaled a cautious relief. She was too smart to believe the whole of everything he’d just said. He knew that. But if she was desperate enough to come here, she must be desperate enough to want to believe him. He had one job now—making that faith worthwhile.
How though?
Seriously, what kind of sicko stole a body? Not vampires. Even those freaks had a little more grace than that.
Blood magic?
Possibly, but there was no taint of it around Rosa. On the other hand, it could have been after the fact.
They were screwed, but at least they were screwed together. He couldn’t imagine anyone he’d rather be truly fucked with. That made it better. Somewhat...
Mind focused on the mess in New York, he was lulled into that dangerous comfort zone which came from driving on too-familiar roads for way too long. His eyes glazed, and only his wife’s scream brought him back. Tires squealed and burning rubber tinged his nose as he wrenched the steering wheel first to the left and then the right. He left a lovely trail of black ovals in the road before tumbling engine first into a ditch. Clumsy fingers fumbled with the seatbelt and everything hurt. Warm fluid drained from his nostril, but it wasn’t his safety he gave a damn about. “Rosa?”
“I-I’m okay. I think. Is the car all right?”
“I give two shits about the car, Rosa. Is anything broken? Did you hit your head? Can you move anything?”
Her eyes were as big as his heart, filled with concern, and yeah, he called it, a little bit of love. “Fine, Fazil. Really. I’m fine. There was a lady...” She tried to turn around but hissed and grabbed her neck. “Maybe I ought to wish for...”
Before she finished, he snatched her pain away.
Very fucking notable to mention that the cause of her pain, stupid Janet Dickey, couldn’t be asked to walk a few feet and see if they were okay. Out of his rearview mirror he saw the klok gumma on her stupid little bike, dragging a stupid little cart, and sipping on something in an equally stupid cup. “It’s that bitch.”
“Witch.”
“Whatever.” And because of what she was, he couldn’t properly reveal what he was by fixing this little “situation” and her. He’d have had Rosa out of that car in seconds, if not
for the woman just ... well ... hanging out. He slid out of the car rubbing his chest and wincing in faux pain. “You all right, Janet?”
The woman readjusted her silvery bun and popped out her earbuds. “Didn’t hear you coming ’round the bend. Sorry about your car.” She stood on her tippy toes and peered around him. “Looks like it might take some time to fix. Unless you’re some sort of magician or something...”
He tried to keep his face as impassible as possible. “You and your jokes. One might think you’re the magician. What with how you caused all this,” he said, waving his hands as a magician would above his head.
She couldn’t have caused this, though. Nothing about this woman was that good. Talented with a capital T? Sure. Resourceful? Yep. But she didn’t have the power to do this. Her Royal Jerk-ness was just really lucky. In all the generations of living on this earth, he’d never worked his mind around reading auras. Some things were best left to the professionals, but something swelled in old Janet. Almost like she fed off him thinking she had more power than she did.
It left him raging and a little sick.
“Maybe I did, Mr. Jones. If that is indeed your name.”
He threw his hands up and turned back to the car. “My wife is fine. Not that you asked about her.”
That actually stopped her. The milky, green eyes widened, and her lips parted in what might be mistaken for concern. Maybe he didn’t have to worry about Janet intentionally harming his hamdullah.
“Janet, this crazy quest of yours to find magic, or whatever the fuck, is getting out of control. People are going to start thinking you’re crazy.”
A cottony eyebrow rose heavenward. “Is that your plan?”
“No. My plan was to go home. Now, my plan is to wait for a service truck to tow me out of here. So, thank you. Any reason why I shouldn’t sue for this?”
“Aha! So that’s your plan?”
“I give up.” He fanned the air and nodded down the road. “Go. I don’t have time for your crazy delusions today.”
“I’ll wait.”
“For what?”
The question hadn’t come from his lips but from his wife. She flung open her car door, slammed it shut, and full-on stomped toward them. He’d seen that face before and upon seeing it now, shook his head, silently begging her not to lose her shit.
No such luck. She fumed, hands clawed like a descending harpy. “What do you want to wait for? Huh? To see if we just magically fix the car and—”
Janet rushed her, hands fanned out and shaking wildly. “You don’t know what he is! He’s ... he’s...”
“Yes, I do.”
“Rosa!”
“He’s my creation.”
Ah, hell.
“All the magic in him came from me.”
He looked from one woman to the other, completely dumbfounded. Was this his day? Really? To see a magic fight between two people who, let’s be honest here, had no real magic. In this corner, an herbalist who lived when frankfurters cost a nickel, and in the other corner, a woman who also lived when frankfurters cost a nickel. “You two should be trading stories, not insults.” If either of the combatants heard him, they didn’t let on.
He stopped between his wife’s hooked finger and Janet’s shaking fist. “This fight is too stupid to continue. Janet, she’s just trying to rile you up. She knows you’re crazy. And baby—”
“I’m not crazy, and you know it. She slipped up is all.” Janet stepped back and angled her bicycle between them. “You’ve seen what I can do. Let’s see what you can do. I put your car in the ditch.”
“You didn’t, lady. You just got in the way and we swerved.”
“Go on. I dare you.”
He laced his hand behind his head and shuffled from one side to the other, praying for heavenly intercession. “Leave it be, Rosa.”
But she jumped full steam ahead on the crazy train. “If we have all this magic that’s got you crapping your diapers, why would you want to piss him off?”
With her hands on her hips, Janet advanced. Her eyes narrowed to wrinkled slits. “Are you threatening me, little girl?”
“I’m a little older than I appear ... little girl.”
It was likely the approaching car that kept Janet’s pinched lips from parting again. They heard it before they saw it, and in the time it took to crank his neck from here to there, Janet had gone from freaking Leonidas, King of the Spartans, to lady in the medic alert commercials.
“Don’t you dare, Janet.”
She opened one eye and winked, before grasping her chest and dropping, writhing on the pavement.
He had to physically wrench a swearing Rosa away. “I’ll kill her, Fazil.”
“I’ll tell them you tried,” Janet said, before going back to her quality performance.
The approaching car skidded to a halt and four doors opened. The Nedersons popped out, five strapping men strong, and rushed to their assistance.
“They hit me. They hit me,” Janet croaked, lips trembling the whole time.
The eldest of the blond giants rushed to pick her up, but his Rosa had a bit of the artist in her too. She fell to her knees, brushing a lock of Janet’s hair away. He couldn’t have been the only one seeing the old lady rolling her eyes. “There, there, Mrs. Dickey. Poor thing just stepped out into the road. She’s still got one earbud in her ear.”
“They darn near knocked it out of me.” Then, likely remembering she was knocking on heaven’s door, Janet moaned and called out for the dear, sweet, baby Jesus.
The tom-fuckery continued. Rosa brought a finger to her temple and shook her head. “Dementia.”
The word dropped as a leaden weight.
One of the younger Nedersons wiped his eye with the back of his hand. “Happened to our gran. Nothing major, just got a little...” His voice drifted off, and he touched the top of his head.
The five nodding heads agreeing to his prognosis sent Janet on the warpath. Looking wholly disgusted with her back on the ground, the crone snarled once and started slapping people.
Not slapping away—just slapping. “I see where this is going. Move. All of you move away from me.” Without any assistance, Janet got to her feet, brushed herself off, and bent to retrieve her bicycle. She silenced the protesting Nedersons with two flipped birds and pedaled away. The youngest Nederson ran after the widow, fighting her for control of the handlebars and begging her to squeeze into their car.
Rosa quickly wished his car back to health and with a few unnecessary pushes from the blonds, they parted ways with enough comments of “how lucky” and “that was close” to last them a lifetime.
Chapter Six
Rosa sunk lower into the massive bathtub. Lying to herself that she wasn’t impressed was stupid. Plus, in a sick and twisted way, she’d had fun. She missed this lifestyle, but not for one second did she regret her reasoning for giving it up.
And it was the second one that previously kept her from getting over the first.
She reclined against the heavenly blue tile and pressed her back against one of the jets. The passionless massage didn’t do much to soothe her. She’d held back from the moment she arrived. Murder? The first of greater sins. Crimes of hate could easily be crossed off or buried out back. Crimes of love, though?
Everything she’d done had been for love. Telling Fazil his attitude pushed her away hadn’t been a lie. Totally. As for the other part though, she had to come clean.
About everything.
Every ... freaking ... thing, because the bill was due soon and if she didn’t cough up the money, all of this would have been for nothing.
Telling him could go well. He might not explode and blow up the county. And he definitely was a changed man. This man knew patience and hard work. In their time apart, they’d both grown in that regard. The djinn she’d married had softened a bit. He’d missed her too. For a man like him—a man who had everything he could ever want—doing without her seemed to have shaken up his very nature.
> A loud knock thundered against the bedroom door. “Rosa? You okay?”
Saying nothing might have him breaking down the door. On the other hand, saying she was naked might bring on the same results. “I’m in the bathroom.”
“Wish me in.”
“No!”
“Fine. I’ll walk in.”
“What?”
Three second later, the door opened. She pushed the few pathetic remaining bubbles up to her chest and glared at the grinning idiot. “What is wrong with you?”
“You didn’t answer,” he said, nodding approvingly into the tub.
She threw some water at him and he stepped back. The teensiest, tiniest tendrils of amusement threatened to twitch her lips, but she refused to let it show. She bit her tongue until it hurt before speaking. “Yes, I did. Or are you ignoring the last—”
He tilted his phone before shoving it in his pocket. “You didn’t respond to my text.”
“I’m taking a bath.”
“I see that,” he said, sitting on the ledge as if he owned the damned place.
Well.
Okay.
And thus things leapt from one grand humiliation to another. She didn’t answer his text because she didn’t have a phone anymore. Not as of two days ago, anyway. “We need to talk about the phone ... and stuff.”
“That and stuff sounds serious, Rosa.”
“Kinda big. I’d rather have this conversation when I’m not naked. Give me two minutes?”
The oaf smirked and leaned over, wiggling his eyebrows down at the bubbly water. “Can I get naked instead?”
“No!”
“We’re still married.”
“I’m going to kill you if you don’t get your raggedy ass—”
“Raggedy?” His back stiffened, and his jaw dropped to the tiles at his feet. “Liar, you’re a dirty liar and you know it. My hindquarters are so good, a countess wrote a poem about four hundred years ago. You can still bounce a half pence off of it. Wanna try?”
“Stop it.”
He jigged his belt buckle. “Sure?”
She was mad, probably, up until he started humming and twirling around in the worst strip tease of all time. She struggled as long as she could, but a traitorous laugh snuck out between quivering lips. Slapping her hand over her mouth didn’t do much to shove it back in.