Bella Flores Urban Fantasy Collection

by R D Martin

  Clearing his throat for attention, Ray waited for the bartender to pretend to notice them.

  “Yeah?” the man asked, not even looking up.

  “Hi,” Ray replied, his voice light and friendly. “We want to talk to Remy.”

  “He’s busy. Come back later.”

  “Busy? That’s okay. We can wait, I guess. Bella, you want a drink?” he asked as he turned to face her. “It’s early for me, but it’s Mardi Gras, so why not? You ever had a hurricane? I tell you, that’s a drink you won’t forget soon. You’ll forget everything else, but not that, I guarantee.”

  Turning back to the bartender, he raised two fingers. “Two hurricanes, please. Lots of fruit in mine. Oh, and an umbrella, too. Can’t have it without one.”

  “Listen, I said beat it. You deaf?” the bartender asked, a scowl creasing his already mangled features. Leaning forward, as if trying to intimidate Ray, he pointed a finger at the younger man’s chest. “You got to the count of three, or I’ll have Eddie throw you out.”

  Quicker than she’d seen anyone move before, Ray reached out and snatched the bartender’s shirt, pulling him forward across his own bar. There was a startled yelp that died as Ray started whispering in his ear.

  She didn’t know what he said, but the bartender’s twisted features drained of color, leaving him a lighter ashen white than the rag he carried.

  She hadn’t come to pick a fight, but she was ready for it. Looking over her shoulder, she started mumbling a spell to add power to her punch, but stopped in mid-sentence.

  The bouncer at the door, Eddie the barman called him, stared at her and Ray with the disinterest of someone looking for an excuse to quit or be fired. As she watched, he shook his head and turned his attention back to the paperback book dwarfed in his huge hands.

  The sound of bottles clanking into one another dragged her attention back to the bar just quick enough to see the bartender push himself away from the bottles lining the back wall. With eyes open wide as teacup saucers and shaking with either nervous energy or fear, he nodded at Ray and scuttled out from behind the bar toward the group of people gathered at the far corner.

  “What did you do to him?” she asked. She hadn’t known Ray long, but was beginning to wonder if he was safe to be around.

  “Him? Nothing. I just told him we were on Queens’ business and unless he wanted a personal visit from a very pissed of gris-gris woman, he’d better run on and tell Remy we were here.”

  The way his lazy smile sat, very much like Cat’s after doing something he knew would annoy her, she was sure he’d said more than that but refused to rise to the bait. It was always a good policy not to feed the animals.

  The bartender broke away from the group and hurried back to his station, dropping his head as he passed by. Snatching up the dirty rag from the counter, he turned his back to them and acted as though the dust on the wall of bottles was a personal insult demanding to be wiped away, and as far as he was concerned, they no longer existed.

  “Come on,” she heard Ray say, and turned her head toward him.

  The meeting at the far end of the bar must have concluded, because most of the men rose and, one by one, sauntered out of the bar with a swagger suggesting violence was not only a possibility, but their usual first chose. Their departure left a single man, sitting with his back to the wall and staring at them. Bella followed behind Ray, and the two made their way to the round table.

  An uneasy feeling swirled in the pit of her stomach at meeting Remy Hebert for the first time. It wasn’t the way he looked, though that was odd enough. Her first impression was someone had removed his neck and sewn his head to his shoulders. The thin beard running along his jawline did nothing but exaggerate the effect. Add in his flowered shirt and cargo pants that stopped an inch above his ankles, and he made a picture she would never forget. There was something else about him though, something making her skin crawl.

  “Well, well. And what brings you two into my fine establishment? My little birdies say you’ve been asking around for me,” Remy said, looking back and forth between them. His voice and tone suggested southern aristocrat, but there was something else, something hidden behind his words that made the teeth in the back of her mouth vibrate.

  “Hello, Remy. Mama Ade asked me to look you up,” Ray replied, pulling out a chair and dropping into it. With a wave, he showed she should do the same.

  “Ah, Mama Ade. Haven’t spoken with her in some time. Getting along well, I hope?”

  “Well enough. You know her, always has something to keep her busy.”

  “True. True. And who is this lovely young lady?”

  “She a friend from out of town. Bella, meet Remy Hebert. Dealer in lost goods, procurer, and one of the finest fences on either side of the Mississippi River.”

  “Raymond, you wound me, sir. I’m just a bar owner, nothing more.”

  “Oh yeah, and he owns half the bars and nightclubs around here.”

  Remy nodded as if that was an apt enough description and didn’t want to waste time on petty insults.

  “So, what can I do for you two and Mama Ade? I’m not sure I know how I can be of service, but I’ll do my best.”

  “We’re looking for something stolen from my friend a week ago.”

  “I told you, I don’t…”

  “What are you?” Bella asked, interrupting the short man’s denial.

  “Excuse me?”

  “What are you? Not human, I can tell. Not troll, or dwarf. There’s something off, not wrong, but it feels like,” she waved her hand as she tried to explain. “Like when you draw a line then try to trace it. No matter how good you draw, it will never be the same as the first line. What are you?”

  “Bella, I don’t think…” Ray started.

  “Young lady. It’s entirely too rude to come into a man’s establishment and accuse him not only of being a thief, but of being less than human. I suffer from a genetic condition and I’ll thank you not to—"

  The ball of blue flame sparking to life above her open palm cut short whatever he’d been about to say. It drew all eyes like moths, but Remy was the first to break the silence.

  “Put that out, Witch. What are you trying to do, get us all killed?” He looked around the room as if expecting Imperium agents to crash in through the door and windows.

  Extinguishing the flame, Bella watched Remy fidget, eyes darting around the room. The tension between them grew thick.

  “Oh, all right,” said Remy with an exasperated sigh. The air around him shimmered with motes of dust twinkling in the new light. When it settled, Remy still sat in his chair, only this version of him was subtly different. If she had to guess, he was taller, though not by much, and his features were a little more symmetrical. He still didn’t have a neck, but his face no longer looked as if he volunteered to be a prizefighter’s punching bag.

  “Don’t look so disappointed, girl,” he said, glaring at her. “Did you think I’d grow another head?”

  “I wasn’t, I mean, I didn’t… What…?”

  “What am I?” He finished her question. “I’m a Tuathan.”

  Her brow furrowed. It was not a name she recognized, and he must have sensed it because he drew in a breath as if bracing himself for something unpleasant.

  “You’ve heard of Changelings, right?”

  She knew the stories of the changelings, children of faeries switched with newborn human babies. But they were just stories, weren’t they?

  As if reading her mind, Remy barked out a short laugh.

  “No, I’m not a spawn of the Fae. All those stories you think you know about Changelings, well, most of them anyway, are just stories. Before modern medicine, you humans blamed us for anything wrong with your children. Convenient way of shifting blame for poor parenting, if you ask me. Your baby never stops crying even though you fed it yesterday? It must be a Changeling. Your son doesn’t do what you say no matter how much you beat him? Changeling. Even worse, when you people neglect your
kids and they run away, we get the blame for that too.”

  He took a shuddering breath and blew it out.

  “Sorry, sore subject. Anyway, Changelings are not Fae, we’re just, well, us.”

  “Then what’s with the glamour? Why change your appearance?”

  He scowled but answered the question. “We live a long time, so we have to change how we look from time to time. Happy?”

  “But—”

  “Look, I’m trying to be nice here,” he interrupted. The air around him shimmered again as he shifted back to his normal look. “I owe Mama Ade, so I’ll poke around a bit, but you’re bad for business.” Turning to Ray, he asked for a description of what they were looking for, then promised to let them know if he heard anything before giving them an obvious dismissal.

  Leaving the bar, she squinted in the afternoon sunlight, waiting for her eyes to adjust. The walk across the gravel lot was quiet and, pulling open the passenger door of Ray’s truck, she slid in. Quiet hung in the air, as thick as any tension. Turning, she was about to apologize to Ray for her behavior but stopped at the sight of his huge grin.

  “You sure don’t pull any punches, do you?” It was more of a statement than a question.

  “I don’t… What?”

  “Remy’s slippery as a snake. He does nothing unless it benefits him somehow. That bit of magic back there had him pissing his britches.”

  “I didn’t mean to…”

  “No, that’s all right. Putting a bit of fear in him will do you some good here too. Build up your reputation.”

  “My reputation? Nobody knows me here.”

  “Well, they will now.” He chuckled, putting the truck in gear and peeling out.

  She shook her head. The last thing she really wanted was to earn a reputation, good or bad. But if what he said was true, it didn’t look like she’d be able to help it. She just had to hope it would be a good one.

  “So,” she said, looking down the tree-lined street. "Where are we—"

  Her forehead bounced off the dash as the truck slammed to a stop in the middle of the street. Stars of white light exploded in her vision and pain bloomed at the impact. Grabbing her head, she struggled to get the world around her to stop spinning, but it didn’t want to cooperate.

  Pushing open her door, she almost fell out of the vehicle. Her legs buckled, too shaky to support her, and she dropped to her knees. The jolt of pain shooting up her waist and spine waged battle with the pain in her head, bringing everything to a standstill centered in the small of her back.

  Behind her, she heard the squeal of Ray’s door open, though trying to turn her head caused the world to spin again. Taking deep breaths, she calmed the gale in her mind, clearing her vision enough to look around.

  The truck sat in the middle of a crossroad, its engine dead, and making the metallic tinking sound of hot metal cooling off. But what had they run into? Using her door for leverage, she pulled herself to her feet and ambled around to the front. Ray was already there, examining the grill and finding nothing. It was as though the road had just decided the truck shouldn’t be moving on it anymore.

  “What, what happened?” she asked, grabbing the side of her head as her voice boomed in her skull like a megaphone.

  “I don’t know.” His voice betrayed how shaken he was, though he didn’t sound like he was in pain. “One second we’re driving, the next…” His voice trailed off.

  “Y’all need some help?” asked a quiet voice just behind her.

  Bella spun at the words and her eyes widened. A scream clawed its way up her throat but stopped at the edge of her lips. Her mind raced to understand what she was seeing, but no matter which way she looked at it, she still came to the same conclusion. Standing inches away and addressing her with concern in its voice was a human skull.

  9

  The scream she held back forced its way out, but came out more of a startled shriek instead. The skull, inches from her face, moved back, bringing more of its body into focus. Her pulse rang in her ears and a cold flush ran through her body as she faced the specter of death, and it took her a moment to realize the thing standing in front of her was not a skeleton, but a human dressed as one.

  The man was taller than her but very skinny, and his face was painted a yellow-white to look like a sun-bleached skull. His clothes, black from head to toe, were a torn patchwork of old material, ripped and torn to reveal the skin beneath. He’d taken the motif of the skull painted face even further and painted his skin with stylized bones. A cheap cigar, clutched between the last two fingers of his right hand, trailed a thin streamer of acrid smoke as he moved.

  “Cher, that’s no way to treat a man trying to help, now is it?” the skeleton man asked as his wide grin distorted his painted face.

  Every movement he made was jerky, as if being directed by a set of invisible strings attached to every joint, each one pulled by a puppeteer somewhere in the sky above. As she watched him move about, her stomach, already unsettled by the accident, twisted in knots. From the corner of her eye, she saw Ray twist about, bringing his hands up as though he was ready to fight. Catching sight of the skeleton man, his hands lowered, though he kept his fists balled.

  “Hello, Baron.”

  “Ah, young Raymond. Looks like you got a bit of trouble going on here.”

  “Seems it, though I don’t remember asking for help.” The enmity in his voice was unmistakable and she could almost see the muscles in his back and shoulders tighten.

  “You done wound me. Here I was just going for a nice walk, enjoying the afternoon air and minding my own, when I see you had an accident.” The Creole accent made understanding him a challenge all on its own. “I thought to myself, someone should help those poor folks. And this is the thanks I get? Who’s your young girl here?”

  “No one you’d know. What’s your business?” The last words came out almost as a growl.

  “Manners, boy.” The grin on the skeletal face disappeared. “I am the Baron, and you will show me respect.”

  The sky above darkened and pressure wrapped around her, making her skin crawl and her ears pop. Taking a breath, she stepped forward and, opening herself to magic, let the energy fill her. She’d show this painted pretender what real magic was.

  “Ah,” the man calling himself Baron said, eyes glittering with unmasked excitement at her approach. “What do we have here, Cher? Are you Mama Ade’s new pet Witch, the one asking questions? Why are you here, Witch? Did she send for you? Do you think you can stand against the power of the Baron?”

  “I don’t,” she began, but stopped as Ray’s hand pulled back on her shoulder.

  “The truce, Baron.” His words sounded as though spoken through cotton batting, muffled and wheezing. “Remember the truce. She’s under Mama Ade’s protection. Harm either of us and every Queen in the delta will hunt you down.”

  As though his words held actual magic, the pressure wrapping around them disappeared and the sky lightened again.

  “Of course, of course. I would never dream of violating that pact. Couldn’t have that, now could we? No no no no. But maybe that’s why she’s here, hm?” Raising the cigar to his lips, he drew in a great breath and held it for a moment before blowing it out.

  She could swear shapes twisted and writhed in the bluish smoke before it wafted away with a passing breeze.

  “But maybe she did, eh?” the Baron continued, shifting his gaze back and forth between them. “Maybe she tired of the truce too and wants an end? She old, boy. You know that. Older than even you know. But I be older, so much older.” The Baron leaned forward as if to whisper a secret. “The truce gonna end, you know. Sooner or later, and the Baron will be free to enjoy hisself again.”

  “Not yet, Baron. Not yet. Now I think it’s time you leave.”

  “Aw, little Raymond. And here I said I was gonna help.” Lifting his painted hand, he gave it a little wave and snapped his fingers.

  Behind them, the truck’s engine roared to life, sta
rtling them both.

  “See? I keep my word. Always. Maybe you should remember that, Raymond. I always keep my word.”

  Backing away from them, the tall man smiled at them as though he knew something funny they did not. Even his smile sent a shiver racing up and down her spine. Taking another puff of his cigar, he held out his hand and, with a dramatic flourish, caused the smoke to spin and twirl. When it cleared, he held a graying threadbare top hat. Placing on his head, giving it a tap to seat it, he turned and began strolling away, whistling a tune she couldn’t make out.

  After a few paces, he stopped and turned.

  “Oh, Cher. I have a gift for you.”

  “We want nothing from you, Baron,” Ray said, stepping between her and the skeletal man.

  “Oh, don’t be like that, boy. I give this freely, asking for nothing in return.”

  The way he said it, she thought it must be part of some ritual because she watched some of the tension melt from Ray’s shoulders.

  “Given freely, without request or expectation of payment, we accept your gift, Baron.”

  The painted man reached into his ragged shirt and tugged out something small. From behind Ray she couldn’t get a good look, and when the Baron tossed it, she lost sight of him altogether as Ray reached up to snatch it out of the air.

  Bella stepped to the side, wanting to keep the Baron in sight in case she needed to do anything, and her skin tightened as though someone had dipped her in an ice bath.

  The patch of road where the Baron stood just a moment prior was empty, without even footprints left behind. Scanning every direction, she could see no trace of the tall man.