The queen shrieked as the ladder toppled. I debated catching her, weighing the pros and cons. In the end, I caught her seconds before impact. I had to. I had no choice.
Fucking union.
As alike as Asia and her mother were in looks, holding the queen in my arms failed to rouse anything inside me. She was a bitter replica of my pretty princess. Sourness, jealousy, and disappointment replaced Asia’s stubborn determination and pride, not to mention her stunning left hook and ability to make a grown villain beg for mercy with one little finger. Ah, what my pretty princess could do with that finger.
The queen put her slender fingers on my arm and kneaded the skin beneath. I shuddered and quickly dropped the offending monarch. The queen fell on her butt, her legs hanging in the air. Blue cotton granny panties peeked out from between her birdlike thighs. From her red-lipped mouth came threats of beheading and revenge.
I smiled politely, reached into my pocket, and measured her majesty’s foot against the glass slipper from the forest.
Two sizes too small. Damn.
“My lady.” I tipped my invisible hat and took off in search of more princessly feet. One suspect down, a palace full to go. I wandered the palace, searching for suspects in general, and Asia in particular. As much as I hated the thought of Asia attempting my murder, could I blame her?
Damn right!
And I would too as soon as I found her.
“Asia,” I yelled.
No one answered.
I tried again, louder. So loud, in fact, the chandelier over my head shook. Dust rained down on me, mixing with the drying blood on my forehead to form a pinkish paste. “Darn it, Asia. Get your skinny butt out here.”
A door at the end of the hallway sprang open. Thousands of tiny Tinker Bell asses blinded me, backlighting the outline of a slim princess in the doorway. I squinted against the onslaught. Those damn fairies twinkled all the more. “I don’t believe in fairies,” I yelled in hopes of dimming the blinding light.
A tiny blonde screamed and her fairy butt winked out. I smiled. How very villainous of me. Maybe my luck was finally changing. The fairy jumped up and laughed, her fairy butt working at double speed. Stupid union.
Farther down the hallway, the princess shadowed in darkness limped toward me, her right slipper missing from what looked like a size-eight foot.
Damn Asia. I’d teach her to shoot at impotent villains.
Or not.
My fingers stroked the reflective surface of the slipper in my hand, waiting. Dark thoughts swirled through my head as villainous rage filled me. A princess would pay for shooting me, even if I had to wait an eternity. A vision of Asia locked in a tower, serving my every need, brought a smile to my lips.
“Does this look familiar, perchance?” I held the slipper toward the princess. Fairy butts glinted off the glass.
The princess took another step into the fairy light.
I stepped back, but not in time.
The corridor filled with high-pitched girlish screams. I covered my mouth, but the screams bubbling through my lips didn’t stop.
Chapter 26
“Sorry about that,” I said to Dru. “You startled me.” Which wasn’t exactly true. When Dru had stepped into the light, my bollocks traveled north and my stomach south.
Not for the reason one might expect, either.
In fact, I doubted anyone could’ve expected the monstrosity in front of me. Imagine a baboon’s butt amplified by a thousand; now give it a harelip, and bingo, you had the poor princess in front of me. The poor princess with one fucking shoe.
Whatever sympathy I felt for the unsightly girl vanished under the burning in my side. That ugly bitch tried to kill me. I stepped forward, the slipper in my hand raised like a weapon, not that I could actually hit her, but a screech of terror would be nice. Hers, not mine.
“Where’d you find my slipper?” Winslow asked from behind me.
I spun to face him. “What?”
“My slipper.” He pointed to the glass slipper in my hand and then to the matching slipper on his left foot. I squinted down at the slipper with a red ribbon and scowled. My eyes crawled to Dru’s slipperless foot. Even though her foot appeared too small to fit the slipper in my hand, I wanted it to be hers. Wanted it more than I’d wanted anything in my life—okay, wanted anything in the last hour. Damn.
“You’re telling me this is your slipper?” I jabbed my finger into Winslow’s chest with force. Instead of flinching and apologizing like I expected, he giggled like a little princess. I glared down at my finger, which was currently tickling the troll-like butler.
“Stop.” Winslow laughed. “Please stop. I give. I give.”
I stopped tickling him and took in the scene in front of me. Winslow stood perched on one high-heel slipper, his meaty toes squished like Vienna sausages in the tip. A bead of sweat dripped down his pale forehead, running down his cheek and splashing against his stark black tuxedo jacket. He glanced at Dru, who stared back at him, her eyes wide.
“What the fudge is going on?” I asked, ending their staring contest.
“I tried this hair-removing cream, and now I look like a baboon’s ass!” Dru yelled with enough force to rattle the fairy bulbs overhead. “And it’s all your fault.” She pointed at me, tears streaming down her bright red cheeks.
“How do you figure?”
She ignored my question, and instead screeched, “How can I marry Prince Charming now? He’ll take one look at me and run for Mexicanada.”
For those who failed geography in Charming School, Mexicanada bordered New Never City on the southernmost side. A nice place to visit, but I wouldn’t want to villain there. They frowned on that sort of thing, eh.
I held up a hand to halt the wailing princess. “That wasn’t quite what I meant when I asked what was going on. What I do want to know is, which one of you took a shot at me?”
“What?!” Both Winslow’s and Dru’s eyes flew to mine.
“Someone shot at you?”
I lifted my shirt, revealing the neat bullet wound in my side. They each examined the wound at length, equal expressions of confusion on their dim faces. If any couple belonged together, it was these two morons.
After staring at my side for an eternity, Dru raised her head and frowned. “You’re bleeding.”
“Yes. Yes, I am. And do you know why?”
Winslow fielded this one. “ ’Cuz someone shot you?”
“Exactly. And that someone lost this very slipper.” I shoved the offending shoe at Winslow. “Do you have something to tell me?”
Winslow glanced down at the slipper and then at his ladymoron Dru. She gave a barely perceptible shrug of her thin shoulders. “Not really,” Winslow said.
“Why not give it a try anyway?” I poked the slipper into his stomach, causing him to giggle once again. “From what I’ve been told, confession’s good for the soul. So I suggest you start talking before you find your soul seeping out of your body through a size-eight hole.”
A rush of power flickered through me. Damn, but it felt good to threaten him. Too good, in fact. My body started to tremble. Electrical sparks shot along my nerve endings.
Shit.
I spun to stop Dru, but it was too late. She pressed the Taser against my skin again. Zap! Fifty thousand volts of electricity shocked my battered body. I dropped to the ground. The tinkle of tiny fairy laughter, like static, echoed in my ears before my world went black for a second time in a matter of hours.
“Asia,” I whispered, pulling her toward me. She pressed her fingertip to my lips. Her skin tasted like cinnamon, her lips like fine wine. I kissed her shoulder, tasting the salt of her flesh. Her legs straddled mine. The weight of her hips pressed into my thighs, stirring my blood to a near boil. I wanted her. Needed her.
“Don’t leave me,” I said against her hot mouth. She lifted her head and stared into my eyes.
Then she was gone.
Jolted from the fantasy, my eyes snapped wide, my breath c
ame in sharp gasps. Sweat dripped from my naked body, pooling on the pink satin sheets underneath me. I glanced around, unsure of my surroundings, much less my mental health. The dream had seemed so real. I could still taste Asia on my lips, but the pink-covered bedroom was empty. Longing filled me, the kind only a villain could know.
Swallowing hard, I tried to erase the dream from my mind and hoped my heated body would get the message. The last thing I needed was another four-hour erection. I wasn’t some horny teenage villain anymore.
“Come on,” I whispered to my little Stiltskin (“little” being relative). “Work with me here.” I lifted the sheet covering my nakedness and sighed. I tried picturing Baba Yaga naked, warts and all, but that merely gave me a headache. Damn it.
“I see you’re feeling better,” a voice called from the shadows. Little RJ instantly recoiled, for which I was grateful, mostly.
“What are you doing here?” I asked Prince Charming. The last time I saw him, he was going wee wee wee all the way home. He still smelled faintly of urine.
Charming slithered from the darkness, his lacy shirt billowing in the still air. “Dru called me. She said you were here, crazed, threatening people with an invisible shoe.”
“Glass. Not invisible. And I’m not crazy.” I frowned and rubbed my aching head. Thankfully the Taser had few lasting effects. Of course, my side still burned like Little Boy Blue when he peed, but it was a distant pain. Manageable. Also, a good reminder of the dangers of falling for a certain redheaded princess. “I’m not,” I repeated when he remained silent.
“Uh-huh.” Charming patted my arm.
I slapped his hand away. “Don’t patronize me. The evidence is right here.” I reached for my clothes neatly piled on the bed next to me. No slipper, though. “I mean, it was here. Dru must’ve taken it.” The bitch. First, her sister tried to kill me, and then Dru sent fifty thousand volts of electricity through me. To top it off, she pilfered the one bit of proof that I wasn’t some drooling, insane villain. I wiped away a string of saliva running down my chin and faced Charming.
“Why would Dru steal your invisible shoe?” Charming tapped one long whisker on his otherwise hairless chin. “She has plenty of her own. I mean, have you seen her closet? It puts my invisible slipper collection to shame.”
For the briefest of seconds I considered how to choke the life out of Charming in my impotent state. Accidental choking came to mind. What if I slipped and to save myself from a nasty bruise, my hands wrapped around his neck? Surely, the union would understand.
“Have you seen the latest Kenneth Cole Invisibles?” Charming grinned. “Of course you haven’t.”
“Don’t. Push. Me.” I held up a hand. “Do me a favor, go find Dru. I need that slipper.”
Charming shook his head. “I’d rather not.”
“Please?”
“No.”
“Pretty please?”
He rolled his eyes. “Fine. But you owe me.”
“She’s your fiancée, remember?”
“How could I forget?” He grimaced. “Every time I see a caterpillar I’m reminded of my upcoming nuptials.”
My eyes narrowed. If Charming didn’t want to marry Dru, why did he ask her in the first place? Why had he proposed to any of the Maledetto daughters? First Asia. That I could understand. After all, she was beautiful, smart, sexy, and bent. The perfect princess. Cinderella, his second choice, wasn’t a bad option either. The chick had a devious streak and smelled like spiced rum. Last and definitely least, Dru, a chick who could barely utter a logical thought and looked like a cross between ugly and her uglier sister.
“So why are you—” I began.
Charming waved me off. “Ours is not to question.”
“What?”
“The Lord works in mysterious ways,” he said with a nod, as if that explained everything. Which it didn’t, and never had. My mom used to say that whenever I asked where babies came from. I hadn’t believed it then, and I’d be damned if I’d accept it now.
“Well, it starts with a bee ... ,” Charming said.
“Huh?”
Charming frowned, scanning my head for injuries. “How babies are made. You asked. I was merely explaining.”
I ran my hand across my face. I must’ve taken more volts than I thought because everything seemed surreal, as if I was still dreaming, but instead of being naked with my lovely princess, I was being tortured by a dim-witted prince.
Clearing my throat, I pointed to the door. “Go. Find. Dru.” Of course, much to my dismay, my cursed tongue added, “Please.”
Again, the prince shuddered at the mention of his intended. I filed my suspicions away and waited until he left the room. Then I quickly dressed and ran down the palace steps.
My mind already felt like mush, and another round of Q&Idiot with Dru would send me over the edge. I had no choice but to leave the palace before something even worse happened, like Asia’s aim improving. Or Charming realizing I’d escaped and coming to find me. Besides, I had a murder to solve. Well, four of them if you counted Hansel and Missy.
When I hit the bottom landing, Winslow opened the front door. “Good day, sir,” he said.
I stopped in the doorway, my eyes boring into his. Slowly my gaze lowered until it reached the tops of his black polished butler boots. His eyes followed mine and he smiled.
“Something wrong, sir?”
I shook my head, muttered something about “finding good help in a kingdom of crazy people,” and headed out the door, my feet sinking into the shag carpet with every step along the way.
Winslow called, “Don’t forget your shoe.”
I spun around expecting to see Asia’s slipper. Instead, Winslow stood in the doorway, a pair of combat boots in his hands. I glanced down at my sock-encased feet. Oops.
A black boot nearly clobbered me in the forehead, but I ducked out of the way and laughed. “Nice throw,” I taunted Winslow.
A second boot followed the first. This one connected with my bollocks. I grabbed my man jewels, puked on my socks, and dropped to the ground with a groan. The cold earth felt wonderful against my aching nutsack. I closed my eyes and took a shallow breath, praying the pain would recede. It didn’t. Damn butler.
I had to give Winslow credit, though. Like a true manservant, seconds later, he arrived with a mop and bucket, a smile on his thin, troll-like face.
Chapter 27
I recovered quickly enough from the affront to my testicles, laced my combat boots up, and struggled to my feet before heading for the kingdom’s one and only market, a place where, for a price, one could purchase anything, including a killer bluebird or two. Not that I wanted or even needed a killer bluebird. I preferred to take my revenge on my princess in a much more personal and naked way. However, my only clue to Cinderella’s murder was the fancy scrawled signature on the receipt I found at Hansel’s.
Missy had died protecting the cocoa-covered receipt, and it was time to find out why. I pulled the receipt from my pocket and checked the signature again. Nigel de Wolfe. The killer had added a smiley face to the O and dotted the I with a heart.
Where had I seen this handwriting before?
I frowned, trying to picture Asia’s handwriting, but nothing came to me.
She didn’t do it.
She couldn’t have.
Or maybe she did.
Asia was certainly capable of murder. But she didn’t strike me as the bluebird type. It was too detached. Too cold-blooded. If Asia wanted someone dead, she’d do it herself. I prodded the bandage covering the bullet wound in my side. Case in point.
So I was back at square one in my search for Cinderella’s killer, with one exception. Someone, probably the woman I loved, wanted me dead. I took it in stride, though. After all, I was a villain. If people didn’t want me dead within a few days of making my acquaintance, I wasn’t doing my job.
I shoved the receipt back into my pocket and hiked a mile and a half to the market. The trek took longer than
I expected since I had to pass Old MacDonald’s Pot Farm on the way.
E-I-E-I-O.
By the time I arrived at the market it was a little after five. I was starving and most of the shops had closed for the night. Yet a few remained open, mostly those catering to a more jaded and naked kind of clientele. I walked by a red-lit window where a dark-haired maiden danced behind the glass. She winked and motioned for me to join her inside.
“No dough,” I mouthed.
She shook her head, moving on to the next victim, a giant with a golden harp under his arm.
The harp glared at the harpy in the window, and the giant blushed. “Her beauty cannot compare to yours, my dear,” he said to the harp as they strolled by the window.
Ah, the age-old tale of boy meets musical instrument.
The tall, slim maiden in the window sighed, glanced around for another victim, and finding none, she finally motioned again for me to enter the establishment.
I lifted my pockets of my Levi’s inside out to show that I was indeed a broke loser. The girl rolled her eyes, paused, and then waved me inside again.
As much as I’d like to think my villainous good looks changed her mind, I suspected boredom played a larger role. The streets were deserted with the exception of me and a couple of Snow White’s dwarfs on a bender. Everyone knew those guys had no cash, not since Snow White bought a poison-apple-red Lexus.
The girl behind the glass tapped on the window again to gain my attention. She put her hands together as if begging and motioned for me to enter the establishment. I considered her offer and her legs for a moment. She couldn’t compare to my pretty princess. She also hadn’t shot at me.
Yet.
I opened the front door to Bob’s Bordello.
Smack!
A tiny fist smashed into my nose. Blood dribbled from my nostril and my right eye started to tear. As far as injuries went, I had worse. In the last hour. But it still hurt.
I wiped a tear from my cheek and raised my other arm to protect my face from another barrage of fists. “Stop,” I yelped, ducking and covering like a drunken Muhammad Ali.
Curses! Page 13