Beguiled

by Maureen Child

  “It’s her job,” Maggie said, stepping on the gas, then signaling to pass a car moving so slowly it was practically going backward. But, she thought, this is how it would be for the next few weeks at least.

  With Thanksgiving over, the hard-core shoppers would be cluttering up Main Street every day between now and Christmas. There would be traffic jams, too many tourists looking to buy something from one of the gift shops and not enough parking spots for the locals.

  But all the storekeepers in town would be happily ringing up their cash registers, hoping to make enough to tide them over during the slower times until their next big season, summer.

  “Did you get your driver’s license in a pet store?” Maggie shouted at the woman who had stopped dead in the middle of the street to make an illegal U-turn.

  While Maggie tapped her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel, Eileen said, “Someone should tell the librarian that seventy-two percent of all children thwarted in their attempts to use computers become cyber-hackers in retaliation.”

  Maggie snorted and glanced at her niece. “Thwarted? What’re you, thirty?”

  Eileen grinned and just like that, she was back to being her old self again, irritations—and budding romance—forgotten. “It’s a good word, huh? I saw it online and had to use it.”

  To support one of the statistics she was forever quoting. Maggie wasn’t sure where she picked up all of these obscure facts, but she was pretty sure Eileen made up most of them. Still, they were always impressive in an argument.

  “Finally!” Maggie crowed as the driver in front of her finished tying up traffic. She stepped on the gas again, but she didn’t get far. Two pedestrians leaped off the curb to cross the street and Maggie slammed on the brakes to avoid running them down.

  “Anyway,” Eileen said, unfolding the papers, “I was reading about Otherworld again and you know how Culhane says the humans have gotten everything wrong about the Fae? Well, I think he’s right.”

  “He’ll love hearing that,” Maggie muttered as she stuck out her tongue at the jaywalkers, who had slowed her down enough that she got caught at another red light. The car beside her shuddered from the power of its stereo blasting out on a frequency that caused what felt like small earthquakes. The bass boomed and the pounding of the drums seemed to echo in Maggie’s mind. She turned her head to scowl at the guy responsible for the hideous sound machine and shrieked a little.

  “Holy crap!”

  It wasn’t a guy; it was a demon. Green skin, black eyes and two mouths, it was using both of them to sneer at her as it lifted a middle finger in a silent salute.

  Eileen looked past her. “Whoa.”

  In an instant, the demon’s human disguise glamour was back in place and he looked like nothing more than a twenty-year-old weirdo with spiky hair and several piercings jutting through his eyebrows and nose. Tough call on which of his images was the yuckier.

  “Demon?” Eileen asked.

  “Oh yeah,” Maggie told her as the light changed to green. She just sat there, watching the demon in the beat-up car peel out. Well, until the driver behind her started honking.

  Grumbling about the traffic, she stepped on the gas and headed for home.

  “In six of your months,” Leanna said with a smile, “you will have a Fae child.”

  “Only six?” Nora smiled past the wave of nausea and laid the flat of her hand against her abdomen. Was she imagining it, or was the baby moving already? So very different. When she was pregnant with Eileen, it was forever before she felt the baby stirring. But clearly, this pregnancy was going to be nothing like her first one.

  “That’s great,” she said, though she felt a quick thrill of—not fear exactly, but maybe . . . okay, fear. She was having a Fae baby. Who knew what that would mean? Of course, that’s why Quinn had brought her to Otherworld. So she could get some answers to her questions. “Three months shorter than I was expecting.”

  “Fae children develop much more quickly,” Leanna told her with just a touch of smugness; then the lovely Fae female sat down on a pale lavender chair that seemed to enfold itself around her.

  Nora managed to stifle a shiver. It was bad enough sitting on this silver couch that continually shifted and moved beneath her like something alive. Sure, it was comfy, but she preferred her furniture to be inanimate.

  The place was beautiful, but then, everything in Otherworld was pretty. Mostly. It was the differences that kept Nora off balance. Like the quivering couch and the way her hostess waved one hand in the air and produced a tray filled with fragile-looking glasses shaped like delicate tulips and a bottle of some honey-colored liquid.

  Not the kind of thing she was used to, even if she did try, unlike her sister, Maggie, to keep an open mind to the supernatural.

  “Are you all right?” Quinn’s deep voice rumbled from close by and he reached over to slide his big hand up and down her spine. Nora leaned into his touch. This was worth it. He made it all worth it.

  “I’m fine,” she said, straightening up a little and moving closer to the edge of that couch. She was half convinced it would try to swallow her soon. “Really, sweetie, I’m good. I’m just . . .”

  Feeling out of place? Couldn’t really say that since Leanna was a friend of Quinn’s. But Nora didn’t think she’d ever be able to relax in such a completely elegant house. A suite of rooms in a shimmering crystal tower in the middle of the great city, the walls of Leanna’s home sparkled and shone iridescently in the afternoon sunshine. The walls were curved, the windows were wide and afforded a view of the far-off sea. A floral scent perfumed the air and soft music that sounded like harps and flutes drifted through the room like a caress.

  It was fabulous and beautiful and the woman who lived here had been nothing but welcoming, but Nora really wanted to be back in her quirky but completely cozy little house. At least there, when she felt hurly, she knew where to go.

  Leanna shifted in her chair, drawing Nora’s attention. Really, was every Fae woman gorgeous? Leanna was tall, mostly leg, with waist-length, pale yellow hair that fell in froths of curls around her shoulders. Her wide, silvery eyes shone in the light of the two suns slanting through the windows. She had a figure that most women would kill for and knowing that she had given birth twice only made Nora more jealous. But she was being helpful and right about now, Nora needed all the help she could get.

  “Is the child female?” Leanna asked, sliding a glance to Quinn.

  “Why’re you asking him?” Nora wondered aloud, shooting her lover a quick, quizzical glance.

  Leanna answered. “Because the males of our race decide the gender of the child.”

  “Oh.” Nora let her breath slide out. “It’s that way for us, too.”

  “Really?” Leanna leaned forward, curiosity stamped on her features. “Human men can choose the gender of their children?”

  “Choose?” Nora looked at Quinn again. “No, they don’t choose, they just . . . you mean,” she narrowed her eyes on the huge male beside her, “Fae males can actually decide on a boy or girl?”

  “Of course,” Leanna said. “So I ask again, which is your child?”

  Quinn shifted uncomfortably, but said, “Male. He will be a warrior.”

  “Of course,” Leanna said with a sigh that sounded bell-like. “The warrior class do prefer their own sort.”

  “A boy?” Nora wasn’t listening right then. Instead, she was focused on the child within. A boy. She was having a little boy. She smiled to herself. If Quinn had bothered to ask her, she thought, she too would have chosen to have a son. After all, she had a daughter. What fun it would be to have one of each. To experience all of the different things a little boy would find fascinating and—“A warrior?”

  Quinn nodded, laid one huge hand on her shoulder and gave it a squeeze. “He will be proud and strong and will one day take his place at the Conclave.”

  “He’s not even born yet and you’re handing him a sword?”

  Nora squirmed a
nd shoved and finally managed to push herself out of the woman-eating couch. When she was standing on her own two feet, she turned her back on Leanna, glared at Quinn and said, “I sooo don’t think so.”

  Chapter Four

  “So anyway,” Eileen said a half hour later as she slid into a seat at the pedestal table in the kitchen, “all of the old myths and legends about Faeries are so far-off what Culhane and Quinn talk about, it’s funny.”

  “Big surprise,” Bezel quipped from his post on a stool at the counter. He shifted position on his wide feet, then waved his long, skeletal fingers, producing a white china platter with magic. “Humans getting something wrong. Wow. Alert the media.”

  Why she’d been so eager to get home, Maggie couldn’t remember. Used to be, she’d walk into the house where she and Nora were raised and instantly feel soothed, comforted. Especially this room. The only room in the house where her grandfather hadn’t been allowed to “tinker” with anything.

  Grandpa had been a man who liked to keep busy, so he’d whiled away his retirement by turning the Donovan family home into a mini-Winchester Mystery House. There were doors that opened onto nothing. And a front door that had been paneled over on the inside. A set of stairs—more than thirty steps with risers no more than an inch high—designed in a zigzag fashion to rise two feet from the floor. And there were hidden passages linking the rooms together in a rabbitlike warren behind the walls.

  But here in the kitchen, Gran had put her foot down. The walls were sunshine yellow, the cabinets were painted a gleaming white and the worn counters looked cozy instead of shabby. It was as if the walls themselves were imprinted with the warmth of family.

  Here, in this house, everything she touched or saw reminded her of her grandparents. The scent of fresh cookies always brought back images of Gran, and glancing out the back window, she could see the guesthouse Grandpa had built himself so that he could leave home whenever he wanted and never be far away.

  Now, Nora and Eileen—and Quinn, too—lived in that guesthouse and Maggie had the main house mostly to herself. Except for those times when Culhane was popping in and out or when Bezel the pixie came down from his tree house to raid Maggie’s stores of chocolate.

  Though the place was a lot less soothing these days, what with everything crazy going on, she was at least at home. Where there were no demons masquerading as goth punk rockers. She hoped.

  Eileen ignored Bezel, reached for a Double Stuf Oreo from the open package in front of her and took a bite, talking around the cookie. “It says here that the Fae kidnap humans all the time, but Bezel says that’s stupid—”

  “Why would we want to clutter up Otherworld with you people?” he demanded.

  “And according to Wikipedia,” Eileen went on as if the pixie hadn’t spoken, “a human who’s half-Fae is welcome in Otherworld, but Bezel says nobody likes a half-breed.”

  Maggie slid a hard look at the pixie, who was now whistling and pretending to be invisible. “Nice. Thanks.”

  Sheba, Maggie’s golden retriever, wandered in from the living room and lay down beneath Bezel’s stool, hoping the pixie would drop something edible. Instantly though, the dog started snoring.

  “Am I a half-breed, too?” Eileen asked.

  “No, you’re a quarter-breed,” Maggie said, “or maybe an eighth-breed. I hate math.” Which made her think back to Culhane’s talking about the Fae grandfather she’d never known.

  When she and Nora were kids, their grandmother had always told them stories about the time when she was young and visiting Ireland and how she’d met a handsome man who’d whisked her off to Faeryland. She claimed to have lived there for several weeks, but when she’d come home, she’d actually been gone only overnight.

  She’d also been pregnant. Of course, no one had believed her wild tales about a Faery lover. But she’d met Grandpa a few months later and married him. He adopted Nora and Maggie’s mom, and no one really thought about the past anymore—well, except for Gran. She’d never really gotten over that magical lover she’d known so briefly. So when Nora and Maggie were old enough, she’d told them everything she remembered about Otherworld and the Fae who lived there.

  Nora had believed.

  Maggie hadn’t.

  She did now, though. She only wished she could have five minutes with Gran so she could apologize about ever doubting her.

  “So the baby will be a quarter-breed, too?” Eileen asked.

  “No,” Maggie said without really thinking about it, “since Quinn’s the father, it’ll be mostly Fae and . . . what?”

  “Don’t expect me to be a babysitter,” Bezel grumbled.

  “God forbid,” Maggie said solemnly as she stared at the hideously ugly pixie whipping up dinner in her kitchen. Bezel stood three feet tall, had wispy silver hair and an even wispier silver beard. His blue eyes blazed in a face so wrinkled he looked like a shar-pei puppy, and the green velvet suit he wore had been made by the wife he never stopped talking about, Fontana.

  The very same wife who had tossed his ugly pixie ass out of Otherworld for spending “too much time with humans,” therefore ensuring that he would spend even more time with them. Now he was living in a magically built tree house in the oak out back and quite literally whipping up dinner nearly every night.

  He wasn’t much of a cook—traditionally speaking, with a stove and, say, pans—but the little pain in her ass could really magic up some great meals.

  “I’m just saying,” he continued, as if Maggie hadn’t spoken at all, “I don’t mind helping out around here—mostly because if you keep cooking, I’ll die. And watching over the kid once in a while is okay, ’cause she doesn’t bug too bad. But no babies.”

  “How’d you find out about Nora’s baby?” Maggie demanded.

  “I told him,” Eileen said. “Mom explained this morning before I went to school.”

  “She told you about the baby already?” Had Maggie been the last one to know? Even Bezel knew before she did? How was that fair? Well, just went to prove, being Queen didn’t bring many perks.

  “Well, duh.” Eileen grabbed another cookie from the open bag on the table. “Thirty-five percent of parents try to hide the coming of a sibling,” she pronounced. “It never ends well.”

  Bezel lifted both silver eyebrows, then shook his head and went back to muttering some incantation over the white china platter on the counter in front of him.

  Leaving him out of this for the moment, which she tried to do as often as possible, Maggie studied her niece. Twelve years old, Eileen had the Donovan blue eyes, dark red hair that hung just past her shoulders and pale skin softly dotted with freckles. Maggie couldn’t have loved her more. “So are you okay about the baby?”

  Eileen thought about it for a second or two, then shrugged and smiled. “Sure. It’s good for Mom to have a baby, since I’m practically grown.”

  “You’re twelve,” Maggie reminded her, making another grab for the cookie bag herself.

  “I’ll be thirteen in nine months. That’s practically tomorrow.”

  God, it really was. As fast as time was moving lately, Eileen could be a grandmother by next week. Maggie’s head hurt and the cookies weren’t helping.

  “After dinner, can somebody come over?”

  “On a school night?” Maggie countered, already shaking her head. “Your mom would kill me.”

  “She’s in Otherworld, remember?”

  Maggie narrowed her gaze on Eileen. God, was the sneaky maneuvering—trademarks of teenager-hood—starting already? “Somebody who?” she asked, remembering the boy who’d been so intent on hiding from her.

  Eileen smiled and got a dreamy look to her eyes that she usually reserved for her favorite actor on Supernatural , Jensen Ackles. Oh boy.

  “Is this about Devon?”

  Eileen didn’t answer, instead concentrating on licking the thick white icing between the two chocolate cookies.

  That more than anything spiked Maggie’s internal radar. Donovan w
omen were rarely quiet. Which meant that either Devon was getting her to be quiet or Eileen had already reached the hormonal stage where she wanted to shut her family out of her life. Oh, please not that.

  “If I told you it was Amber who wanted to come over, that would be okay?” she asked, clearly unable to keep quiet for long.

  “Still a school night, and besides, it’s not Amber, is it?”

  She smiled. “Not so much.”

  “Then who?”

  “Devon, okay? It’s Devon,” Eileen grumbled to herself as she finished off her cookie and grabbed another one. “But it’s not like I was trying to sneak out to see him. I wanted him to come over here where you could interrogate him and humiliate me. See the trust I have in you?”

  “Touching. Truly.” And it went without saying that she would be interrogating good ol’ Devon at the first opportunity.

  Eileen sighed and pouted. At the same time. “You’re my aunt. You’re supposed to be the fun one who spoils me.”

  “Uh-huh,” Maggie said, folding up the cookie bag before she could eat another one herself. Yes, since she’d gotten all the Fae power dumped into her system, her metabolism had been excellent. But why push the envelope?

  “You know I love you, sweetie,” Maggie said. “But when it comes to boys and you? Nobody’s the ‘fun’ one.”

  “My life sucks,” Eileen complained.

  “I hear that,” Bezel seconded.

  “What’s for dinner?” Maggie demanded.

  Bezel sniffed. “Torkian beast.”

  Maggie frowned. “What?”

  “Think roast beef but better.”

  He always said that. Like everything in Otherworld was superior to Earth. He even insisted their version of hell, Ifreann, was scarier. But Maggie had her doubts. She’d been to weekend religious classes when she was a kid. She’d been taught by nuns, and nobody did hell better than Catholics.

  “Is it endangered?” Eileen asked.

  Bezel laughed and the sound was like a dry paper towel against cloth. Raspy and irritating.