Death Kissed

by Kris Austen Radcliffe

  “Looks like my daughter wants the Alfheim Sheriff’s Department to be in charge of your life, Ranger.” He stood and backed away with his kids.

  Sophia blinked. She inhaled. Then she hugged his waist. “Papa!” She hiccupped as if this were the first time during the entire ordeal she’d allowed herself to be afraid. “I don’t like Texas. I want to go home to Minnesota.”

  He did, too. To his wife. To their new baby. To his annoying job he liked and to the annoying locals he mostly liked, except for the many random mouthy Brad Andersons. To the good schools and the clean air.

  And the traffic accidents that always banged up expensive cars but never did hurt drivers beyond a bruise or two.

  It was a cage, yes, but Ed was pretty sure the door was unlocked.

  He still needed to figure out how dangerous the outside world was.

  Now to get them home. “Sweetie,” he knelt down to give her a hug, “we’ll go home.”

  Wrenn pulled Ranger to his feet. “Back to the station,” she said. “You pay the toll this time.”

  He chuckled.

  “Answer Wrenn Goodfellow’s questions thoroughly and truthfully,” Ed called. “And do as she says. Don’t cause more problems or inflame the ones you’ve caused already.”

  Ranger stuck out his tongue.

  Sophia stuck her tongue right back at him.

  “I’m gonnae miss ye, my lovely Ne’er-the-oracle.”

  She gave him the finger.

  “Sophia!” Ed said. “Young lady!”

  She shrugged. “Kelpies are evil, Papa.”

  Wrenn pushed him into the brush. “I suggest leaving that sword right where it is. Let the elves deal with it.”

  He had no intension of touching the blade. Not now. Not ever.

  Gabe, though, seemed quite fascinated. “Leave it alone, son,” Ed called.

  His boy looked up. “It’s glowing.”

  He said it so nonchalantly that the words didn’t immediately register with Ed … sort of like the enchanted sword was supposed to glow, because that’s what they did, and it not glowing would have been the anomaly.

  Except they were mundanes, and they didn’t see glowy magic, nor did they feel it. So it should have been just a sword lying in the sand.

  A not-glowing sword.

  “Gabe!” Ed ran for his son. “Get away from the—”

  He ran headfirst into a strange woman wearing an antlered helmet.

  Chapter 26

  Wrenn knew immediately who had stepped out of one of the many veils and directly into poor Ed’s path. Only a handful of fae had that much power, and only one of that particular small subset had the audacity to steal an intelligence dryad’s armor off her back and then parade around in it like it was some sort of kid’s costume.

  Wrenn’s boss’s wayward wife, the other royal fae with enough raw magical ability to pop in and out of any situation at any time she wanted: Titania, Queen of the Fae, now stood on the sand between Ed and his son.

  The Queen showed up on this particular Texas beach in the gloom and all the bloodsucker doom after the vampires had probably given Ed’s kids deep psychological traumas. After Red had destroyed Ed’s house and hurt those werewolves. After the Heartway had cut Wrenn with Victor’s ghost.

  After how many sprites had been trafficked by Ranger’s brothers?

  Wrenn swore under her breath. Queen Titania helped only herself, which meant she was about to make this entire situation significantly worse.

  Wrenn yanked her Royal Guard star off her belt. “Queen Titania of the Fae!” she called out, more so that Ed would understand just who it was into whom he’d smacked. “I am Wrenn Goodfellow of the Royal Guard. This kelpie is under arrest.” She knocked Ranger. “The mundane and his children are under my protection.”

  Not that her protection would count for much if Titania was in a mood.

  Ranger gulped. “I’m sorry, Queen Titania!” he wailed as he fell to his knees. “I didnae heed yer call an’ I am so very sorry for my misdeeds!”

  Under the antlered helmet, the Queen frowned.

  “As Royal Guard and the King’s Paladin, I serve the fae,” Wrenn said. All of the fae, Wrenn thought. Not just the royals and their whims.

  Because this was about a whim. It had to be. Why else would Titania show up after all the fun was over? She was here to collect the spoils for herself.

  Which meant someone here was about to pay and no one anywhere would get justice.

  Titania’s frown turned to a wry grin.

  We bind thee, Fenrir! Red called out in an increasingly uneven and pained way.

  Wrenn’s eye twitched. Part of her wanted to run to the sword and to offer comfort. But all of her understood that Redemption wasn’t her problem anymore.

  The Queen was.

  “I’m here for my stallion,” Titania said.

  “Yes,” Wrenn said. “I figured.” She didn’t release Ranger.

  The Queen pulled off the antlered helmet and tossed it to the side, then thought better of it. “You, Royal Guard woman.” She pointed at the helmet. “I need you to take that and this—” She waved her hands disapprovingly over the dryad’s armor she wore. “—back to my husband’s lackeys.”

  “I would be happy to do so, my Queen, once I take in this kelpie for processing.”

  The Queen rolled her eyes. “They’re naughty. I know. But we have to give them some leeway or they won’t be able to keep their worst behaviors under control. Such is how we contain the dark among us.”

  Wrenn gave Ranger a shake. “Your stallion is part of a blood syndicate run by the kelpies from your stable,” she said. “They’ve been trafficking victims to the Gulf Coast vampires here in the mundane world.” How is that “naughty”? she thought. She didn’t dare say it out loud. Not to the Queen.

  Titania’s nonchalant annoyance turned into what looked to Wrenn to be actual concern. “Is that true?” She stared at Ranger. “Answer me.”

  Yet she obviously knew what the kelpies were doing. Maybe she hadn’t realized the true depths of the naughtiness. “An exsanguinated sprite washed up on the banks of the Titan River a few days ago,” Wrenn said. Maybe she could get the Queen on board with completely shutting down the syndicate.

  Titania’s expression changed. She hadn’t known about the sprite.

  “The vampires turned one of your kelpies,” Wrenn said. “Robin Goodfellow dusted him in a tavern’s kitchen Samhain evening.”

  That she definitely had not known. Royal anger spread in spikey waves through her red and green magic.

  Ranger sniffed. “I wonder what kind o’ panic we’d have ourselves if th’ regular fae folk kent about vamped kelpies,” he drawled.

  Titania’s eyes narrowed.

  The desire to punch the side of Ranger’s head almost overcame Wrenn’s control. Punch him and haul him down the beach to Red so she could run him through.

  We bind thee! Red called.

  Because everyone involved would see using an unstable elven sword to end one of the Queen’s stallions as justice, right? Even if they did, it wouldn’t make good politics.

  It’d get Wrenn banished. Or executed.

  Titania winced and looked as if she wanted to glance at the sword.

  Did she hear Red, too?

  Ed’s boy looked at the sword, then up at Queen Titania, then back at the sword. “Ma’am,” he said, “there’s a glowing sword and I don’t think we should be standing this close to it.”

  Titania inhaled and the anger abruptly froze. It didn’t leave her magic, just stopped spiking.

  She smoothed the lovely swirls of her dark blonde hair away from her face. “And who are you, my dear handsome young mundane?”

  She knew who she was talking to. Who Ed was, too. She had, for some reason, decided to be polite to Ed’s son.

  The kid somehow kept his composure. “My name is Gabriel Martinez. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Queen Titania of the Fae.”

  He offered his hand.
r />   Ranger hmphed. “The vamps were mutterin’ somethin’ about American Chosen One lore,” he whispered.

  Wrenn looked down at the kelpie.

  “What?” he said. “I can respect a couple o’ bairns if I want tae.”

  Ed stood there in front of Titania utterly stunned and looking as if he were about to grab his kids and run. Which, honestly, he should have done already.

  Titania put her hand on her chest as if Gabriel had just offered her the loveliest pearl in all creation. She leaned toward the kid, then looked at Ed and his Sheriff’s Department uniform. “Are you the elves’ lawman?” she asked. She slapped her thigh. “You are! And you’re his son?” she asked the boy.

  He continued to offer his hand. “Yes, Ma’am,” he said. “But I think we need to make sure Papa’s okay and to move away from the sword.”

  Good kid, Wrenn thought.

  “See?” Ranger said.

  Queen Titania looked around the child. “Oh! Ranger, you disobedient boy!” she called as if she’d just noticed the sword. “Did you steal the elves’ pointy object?”

  “Th’ Royal Guard woman did it!” Ranger yelled.

  Wrenn gave him a good shove. “Be quiet.”

  Titania took young Gabriel’s hand. “Come, young man, and bring your dear stunned father.” She pulled him up the slope, toward Wrenn and Ranger. The kid, still somehow keeping his composure, managed to haul his father up the hill too. The little girl followed. They left Red where she was.

  We bind thee!

  The Queen winced again as she stopped directly in front of Wrenn. She peered up as if Wrenn had a wart on her chin. “My, my! The resemblance is uncanny.”

  And there it was again, the “resemblance” thing. Wrenn frowned.

  Titania shrugged off the rest of the armor to reveal a simple t-shirt and jeans underneath. She looked deceptively like all the pretty mundanes walking around Texas. “Here, son.” She handed Gabriel a tiny bit of metal, a ring or a bit of mail from the armor. “That’s for you and all your siblings.”

  “No gifts from the fae,” Ed muttered. He rubbed at his head as if running headlong into Titania had caused him actual damage.

  “Now, now.” Titania stepped forward and kissed his forehead. Magic flared out around them all, then settled down onto Ed and the boy, but dripped off the girl as if it had hit something slippery. “It’ll all be okay.”

  Wrenn saw no enchantments around any of the mundanes. Nothing overtly elven, and nothing newly fae, which meant either they were clean, or the enchantments were so close to their skin and so thin that they weren’t visible.

  If she had to bet, she’d take the latter.

  We bind thee!

  Titania winced again. “Paladin,” she said, “I will deal with the kelpies.”

  All those sprites, all the victims—their families needed justice.

  Or not. With the fae, justice and revenge were so closely interwoven that any official acknowledgement of kelpie wrongdoing could easily spin up into house against house, royal against royal, sprite against satyr, and fae taking out their aggressions on the local witches.

  Yet they’d been trafficking. “But…” Wrenn said.

  Titania held up her hand. “Diplomacy, young lady. The totality of this is a delicate situation and none of your business.”

  “So it’s above my pay grade, is it?” She shouldn’t be short with the Queen, but sometimes it was difficult to hold in her annoyance.

  Titania sighed. “He is not the only kelpie I need to collect this evening.” She turned away from Wrenn. “Now gather that horrid armor and make your way back to my husband.”

  Dare Wrenn argue with the Queen? Damned royals. There were laws and a Royal Guard for a reason. “They’re trafficking sprites, Queen—”

  The Queen of the Fae grabbed Wrenn’s hands. “I will deal with it.” A spell rolled down the Queen’s arms and onto Wrenn’s wrists as she spoke. It flared out more blue and purple than any fae magic Wrenn was used to, and coiled itself around her wrists.

  “What—”

  Titania touched her lips and shook her head. “Make sure you are gone before the elves show up,” she said to Wrenn. “No incidents, understand?”

  “She has business in Alfheim,” Ed said.

  Titania laughed. “That she does!” She tapped Wrenn’s arm and leaned close to her ear. “Be kind,” she whispered. She pulled back and smiled. “Can’t happen until morning, anyway, so go home and feed your fishes, my love.”

  Was she talking about the monster hidden among Alfheim’s people? And how did the Queen know about Wrenn’s fish?

  Titania grabbed Ranger by the scruff of his neck. “I give you a home, a place where you’re fed and cared for, and you do this? You’re no better than the vampires.” She looked at Ed. “Gather your younglings, my dear Sheriff. Time to return you to my favorite handsome Odin elf.”

  They all vanished. All of them—Ed, his kids, Titania, and Ranger—and left Wrenn alone on the shadowy beach with a dryad’s armor and an elven sword stuck in some kind of memory loop.

  The two bands of Titania-made magic around her wrists tightened and flattened. And slowly, delicately, they snaked their way in and around the tattoos she already carried. “Hmm…” Wrenn said. The Queen didn’t want other fae to see the enchantments she’d left on Wrenn’s body.

  Had Titania just given her token spells like the others she carried in the tattoos? Why? Was this part of Titania’s “delicate situation”? Because everything was part of a delicate situation with the fae. Being Royal Guard helped insulate her from most of the royal posturing, but this? Just how much bigger than a blood syndicate was this? Would Titania deal with the kelpies? Would the trafficking stop? Would the Queen kill Ranger?

  But… she couldn’t. The kid had his bridle. The Queen of the Fae might have taken him back to his stable but the Martinez family controlled his destiny.

  Wrenn chuckled. The little girl really had given that bastard a boon.

  She looked up at the sky. How did the elves and Alfheim fit into all of this? She still didn’t know if Victor’s vampiric monster was somehow involved. Or his other… her brother. She might as well admit it to herself.

  She’d always known, really, what “saving her from drowning” meant. She knew. But being a witch got a lot more respect from the fae than being a monster.

  But she was a witch. And not a monster. So nothing had changed. Not really. And now she was to “be kind.”

  She picked up the dryad’s armor and draped it over her arm. Should she take the sword back, too?

  We bind thee!

  But something told her that taking Red into the Heartway right now wasn’t smart, especially without a token. The last thing any realm needed was for the Heartway’s reflection of Victor Frankenstein to get his hands on an explode-y sword.

  Ghosts shouldn’t have power, much less a power named Redemption.

  Wrenn picked up the helmet and dusted off the sand. The walk back to the old mission should help steel her for another token-less trip.

  After all this time, she should be used to the hells of the Heartway. But she should also be used to the flashbacks by now, too, and the jitters that came with them both. Her body panicked and her mind wanted to talk it down and the whole process exhausted her more than the ripping open of her traumas. She could psych herself up all she wanted but a trip back through the Heartway and another round of it poking a lightning rod into her disturbed soul felt heavy.

  Maybe she should wait for the elves. Hitch a ride into Brownsville, where she could book a flight to London; there she could buy a token off a fae in the mundane world. But international flights were few and far between right now, with the mundane world so unsettled.

  She walked over to Redemption.

  The sword really was glowing in real light. “Take a deep breath, my swordly friend. The elves are on their way. They’ll help. It’ll be okay.”

  The sword would do as she asked.

 
“Are you talking to me again?” She had no idea what to make of this elven blade’s possessiveness, or their connection. Or even the possibility that she was, in fact, a witch of elven descent.

  Which meant she really should deal with her business in Alfheim.

  Wrenn rubbed at the tip of her nose and stared out over the water at the glow from South Padre Island. The sudden decrease in overall vamp numbers a month ago had stirred up this trouble. Nature abhorred a vacuum, so now the vampires were in the midst of an internal war that overflowed not only into the fae realms, but into elf territory.

  Or, from Ed’s reaction, was caused by something in elf territory.

  Why did she keep going back to Victor with all this? That somehow Victor Frankenstein’s rot had infected everyone’s soil and had triggered… whatever this was.

  We bind thee, Fenrir!

  She looked down at the glowing sword. “I thought you were going to take a breath?” The glow had decreased, at least.

  The talk of Fenrir was worrisome considering the all the chaos in both the mundane and magical worlds. And the Queen’s refusal to allow Wrenn to deal with the kelpies through normal channels.

  Wrenn reached for Red’s hilt.

  “Stop!” Wrenn yanked back her hand and turned around.

  Robin Goodfellow stood about five feet away. “There you are!” He leaped forward and grabbed her by the scruff of the neck. “Time to come home, young lady.”

  Chapter 27

  “Papa!”

  Sophia was touching Ed’s face, as was a lot of cold air.

  “Is he okay?” Gabe said. “I figured if we were calm and respectful with the Queen she wouldn’t get mad at us. Did it work?” His feet shuffled on what sounded like dirt. “We’re in a pit, but I think we’re home.”

  Ed opened his eyes to a black sky and an even blacker pit. Random snowflakes fluttered downward only to be whipped away by a cold wind that thankfully rolled over the pit more than into it. Somewhere nearby, plastic snapped in the wind. They were a good eight or so feet down in a hole. What remained of the garage floor jutted out along the edges of the hole complete with poking, ragged rebar.