by Jaime Munn
Down in the basement Asbelia was still wafting above the ground in her ghost disguise. I would have said something about it, but I’d already cracked one too many jokes at someone who was vastly more powerful than any creature or being that dwelled on the cusp. I didn’t think letting my personal feelings run my tongue was a good way to keep on breathing and stay this side of the ever after.
I slumped into the chair, dropping my head into my hands with a soft groan. I didn’t even notice the transition when it happened, but I did notice that my seat was far more comfortable than it ought to have been. Shifting away the hand obscuring my vision I peaked at my surroundings before my head shot up.
I took in the grandeur of Asbelia’s little portion of the vast and beautiful and terribly dangerous veiled world. The light was pure honey. I felt that if I stuck out my tongue out it would fall on my tongue as sweet.
The air was filled with the mingled scents of a myriad of fruit trees in bloom; like notes I picked out cherry and apple and strong orange citrus among them. We were surrounding by trees. I was seated at a table that looked like solid stone, but felt like crushed velvet. It was firm but soft. It was probably a million times more comfortable than the mattress on my bed. I doubted though that Asbelia would approve if I curled up on her table for a nap.
Asbelia herself now sat across from me preparing a hot drink that flowed crystal clear into dainty cups that looked like they had been carved from amethyst till they were sliver thin. So delicate looking that I would hesitate to breathe on them. The liquid put pure and clear rivers to shame. By comparison when people spoke of crystal clear water they had no idea of what they were talking about. My host was as supernaturally beautiful as she had been in my vision. Looking directly at her stirred my libido like no aphrodisiac ever could.
I focused on her ritual preparation of what I took for some veiled world tea, but I caught a flash of her ruby-red lips curving in a sudden and knowing smile.
When she set the silver pot of hot liquid aside, Asbelia stirred in a tablespoon of what looked like treacle drawn from the honey sunlight into a cup. The amethyst sang out in rich, high notes as she did. She did the same with the second cup. Then she pushed the first towards me.
There are many stories of eating or drinking something given you by a magical being and the warnings against it are all entirely true. In reality turning down the offerings of a being of the veiled world is like spurning the hospitality of a feudal king. I rather liked my head sitting on my shoulders and not on the end of a stick, so I took her cup of mysterious and magical beverage with a smile.
I took a tentative sip while Asbelia pretended not to be watching me. The only way I could think to describe the drink was that it melted on my tongue, or perhaps evaporated or even effervesced. Rather than making its way through my system, it seeped through every pour. I felt revitalised and more alive than I could ever recall feeling.
“That should help you get through the day,” Asbelia said, taking a sip from her own cup. “And spare you some bruising.”
I nodded, taking another sip. Trying to match the flavour with anything I’d had tasted before. If Coffee-on-Main knew the secret recipe they could dominate the world, but I had no doubt that whatever the origins of the drink it was nothing that would be found in the young world.
“It is made from the sap of a tree,” Asbelia answered my thoughts as easily as she would have answered a voiced question. “You could say it is a tisane made from the tree of life, but that concept doesn’t really apply to the world. It’s only something dreamed of in that fairy land you mortals live in.”
In literature you’re lead to believe that fairy land is a place of magical creatures hiding from the real world. From the perspective of magical beings it’s really the other way around. If you ever square off with a magical creature on this very matter I’m sure you’ll be willing to cede the point. I would strongly advise you say it loudly and clearly and maybe you’ll be pardoned and spared your short little life.
The veiled world is infinitely vast and old. So old that you can literally feel the ancient bones and long, long forgotten history in the air, in the stone, in the earth. I don’t doubt that we’re the ones hiding away from the real world in our own little fairy land. I wouldn’t change that for anything.
I waited for Asbelia to bring the conversation round to why she had pulled me into the veiled world in the first place. Though my expectation was probably as palpable to Asbelia as the sun in the sky she said nothing on the subject as we continued to drink our mystical tea.
“I prefer mystical tisane. It’s far more accurate.” Asbelia gestured to the middle of the table. I saw a crystal bowl filled with golden fruits no larger than quail’s eggs covered in a glitter of fine, clear crystals. It hadn’t been there a moment ago. “A sugared date?” Asbelia offered.
I took one politely. It flowed like syrup over my tongue before I could even attempt to bite into it. It was like supercharged sugar; sugar on steroids. I was tempted to grab a handful. To stash them in my pockets to add to my emergency sugar reserves.
“That wouldn’t be polite,” Asbelia chided. “It also doesn’t tend to travel well, but I’ll pass your compliments on to the chef.” She took one for herself. Sighed as it melted in her mouth. “They are good though,” she said with a smile like we were best friends exploring a new restaurant.
Candy bars at twenty paces might equate to witchcraft duelling in the young world but to Asbelia feeding a witch sugared confectionary obviously didn’t hold the same meaning. I doubted that even if I stuffed my face with the golden fruits I could even begin to match the woman across from me in terms of sheer power. I wondered again why she would ever need my paltry spells to protect Emma when with ease she could turn the child invulnerable to all harms and ills.
Asbelia laughed. It was bright and musical and alluring. Even after it chimed its last note it lingered with me, charmed me still.
“The child is nothing to me.”
She took a sip of her tisane. Her long and delicate fingers wrapping around the amethyst cup. She gave me a long and measured glance over the rim of it, the smoky purples no match for the deep and jewel brightness of her own violet eyes. “You are no detective, but there were certain requirements that needed to be met. I desired your scruples, Vanilla.”
I returned her gaze with a confused expression on my face.
Asbelia sighed, a soft smile on her face. She shook her head gently. “This was never about the child.”
I digested this information slowly not finding much sense to it. Asbelia clearly had no interest in Emma’s future or her protection, but had pursued it for another purpose. Even undeductively inclined me could see that the road had led to Grace St John like the yellow brick road led to Oz. I scowled at Asbelia.
A little bit of advice, if you do end up in a realm filled with magical creatures and charming beings, always remember even those who present like fairy godmothers would as soon use you as bless you.
“Yes,” Asbelia murmured with a smile. “Quite right.”
Just like that I was back in my basement and the veiled world was gone. I still held the amethyst cup. The saucer dainty and elegant against the cheap surface of my little table. In the centre of the table lay the crystal bowl of golden dates dressed in crystallised sugar. I got the impression that neither of these things would linger long in this world. I drank the last sips of the tisane down quickly, feeling guilty that I couldn’t savour those last mouthfuls as they deserved. I took another of the dates. It felt sticky between my fingers, like it was already melting. Asbelia had been right, they didn’t travel well.
It tasted less sweet already. There was a tartness to it as it flowed over my tongue. I didn’t try another. The bowl faded back into the veiled world. The amethyst cup surprisingly didn’t. It sat there firmly on my table looking like a treasure from an alien world. In many ways that is exactly what the veiled world is. If Asbelia considered it another down payment on my ser
vices, I wished she’d start paying me in something that I could translate into coin. I couldn’t pay my rent in carved amethyst tea cups.
I sat a moment longer trying to discern why Asbelia had set Grace St John’s hand against me. What was in it for the woman from the veiled world? I turned the few words she’d had to say on the subject over and over in my head, but they didn’t really seem to be important clues. Undoubtedly they were. I just wasn’t able to see through them to the hidden meaning.
Shit. I really hated having the interest of a woman of the veiled world thrown my way. Beautiful as she was, she’d eat me all up and probably wouldn’t even remember the meal soon after. The supernature of the veiled world demanded more of those who wanted to survive. Asbelia was clearly an apex being of her realm.
“Why me?” I groaned, then thought of Asbelia’s words. She’d chosen me for my scruples, but what did that mean?
It took me a moment to join the dots on that one, but it sort of fell into place when I hit on the one scruple that she’d invited me for tisane and dates to highlight. It surfaced in my thoughts like a nugget of gold placed there by the very not idle conversation we’d shared.
“I won’t just kill Grace St John,” I said aloud, but that still left me wondering why that mattered at all.
CHAPTER THIRTY
Not knowing how long I’d been in the veiled world, I trudged up the stairs. It wasn’t asurprise to find that barely minutes had passed. My tea party had probably been all of a handful of seconds in the world we liked to think of as the real world. A figure stood outside the door, her face turned away from me, but my heart skipped a beat when I recognised Sofia.
I watched her a moment before moving closer to open the door. Her posture seemed relaxed and lazy, but I knew that werewolves were a little deeper than the surface. Their body language had a greater range of subtleties and meaning. I stopped my scrutiny before the wolf in her sensed me and walked the last few steps to the door.
Sofia gave me a concerned look as I let her into the store.
“How is your friend? How are you?” She took my hands in her own. I felt a warm flush rush through me like a wind from the veiled world.
I wanted to say fine to both questions, but the truth was that I didn’t know if everything was fine with Livia. It definitely wasn’t for me. I still had the wicked witch on my back and apparently I wasn’t supposed to kill her. It hadn’t sounded like a warning at the time, but the more I thought on it, the more it seemed it was.
I realised that I hadn’t changed the game, but my association with werewolves had. Cleo and her pack had forced Asbelia to have another face to face with me. The thought made me shudder.
“I don’t know, Sofia,” I said finally. I was ashamed of the tremor in my voice. I couldn’t meet her searching gaze.
“Can I help?” she asked tentatively.
They weren’t loaded words but they certainly played that way in my mind. “You could listen. I really need someone to talk this through with. Not here though.”
“Tonight?”
I nodded. “You remember my place?”
She smiled. “I could find it without any trouble at all.”
Those words, I thought, were definitely loaded. I gave her the address anyway. Cabbies frown on customers rolling down the windows and passing along directions while literally following their nose.
She lingered a little while but left when a customer wondered in and started asking me about every lamp on the shelves. I might have been a tad abrupt with the customer for depriving me of Sofia’s company because she left without buying a thing, muttering darkly to herself.
Perhaps because the fates love a good joke at the expense of us mere mortals, some unknown flood gate opened. I was suddenly inundated with customers seeking out the perfect lamp. I even got a few sales out of it. At least one of my worries, the exorbitant taxi fee of the morning, was laid to rest when one of the customers took ten lamps off of my hands. I wondered if that meant that this time the joke was on the fates.
I called Livia in the afternoon but her cell phone was off. The call went straight to voice mail. I spent half an hour restraining myself from rushing out the door and tracking her down, worrying that something worse than being the undress doll of an incubus had happened to her. She called me back before the building panic burst its banks and threw me into action.
“You were worrying weren’t you?” Livia greeted me before I had a chance to get out more than a relieved hello.
“I was,” I admitted, feeling a bubbly laugh somewhere deep inside of me like a balloon filled with happy gas making its way up from the pit of my stomach. A place where the carnivorous butterflies of fear had previously reigned unchallenged.
“Kevin and I were at the movies. We couldn’t stand not doing anything.” I could imagine Livia sticking her tongue out at me. It was my fault that they’d taken the day off. “We’re both really tired but sleeping is almost impossible. It’s almost like we’re afraid we’ll wake up with another memory gap and no idea what happened.”
“Understandable,” I replied. “You both had quite a traumatic experience.” A twinge of guilt burst my happy bubble, killing the laughter before it reached my lips.
“Yes, well it sucks. Honestly, I’d rather be at Tangles explaining the difference between gouache and watercolour to a customer with the mentality of a Neanderthal.” There was an almost sigh at the end of her statement, a heavier breath carried through the connection to me.
“Tomorrow you’ll be wishing you could call in sick.”
“You’re right.” It was followed by a heavy sigh this time. “Kevin and I are off to try and get some sleep. I forget what number attempt it is. I don’t know whether sleeping together is part of the problem.” My heart wrenched for her. I wondered if the spark of romance had already fled from the relationship. It was premature and it was clearly my fault.
“We need another girl’s night in.” I told her, then hoped she wouldn’t take me up on the offer for tonight. I already had plans that didn’t include my best friend.
“Oh yes, please,” Livia said, crushing my hopes. “But not tonight. I don’t think I would be any fun tonight.”
“Rain check,” I said covering my sigh of relief.
“Thanks, Nilla. I’m going to turn my phone off again so don’t panic if you can’t reach me. Honestly between you and Erica, I’d never get any sleep. You’re like a pair of mother hens.”
I laughed because even traumatised, Livia was still playing matchmaker with all the subtlety of an elephant on a tight rope. We said our goodbyes and I hated that there was a lie between us.
CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE
There was a summer storm brewing as the afternoon swiftly ran towards evening. The clouds darkened even while the heat of the day seemed to swelter. Inside my cocoon of air conditioning I didn’t notice the stifling heat until I stepped out for a quick coffee run. The heat hadn’t dissipated much by the time I closed up the shop.
F.C. slumped at my feet as I locked the door and gave the store a final check, pressing my face up close to the glass inset in the door. He was reluctant to move through the heat, but I was eager to get home and make sure everything looked perfect for my guest tonight. The sky was dark as night already but there were stabs of lightning on the horizon. The dull rumble of distant thunder announced the coming storm. By the time I reached home, after a quick stop over at the supermarket to gather a few exotic ingredients to mix something tempting together, I thought that the forks of brilliant lightning had moved closer to Whisper Falls.
Home felt secure as I stepped through the front door. There was the welcome tingling of magic in the air from my defensive spells that permeated the open plan kitchen, lounge, and bedroom. I made a mental note to reinforce them. Perhaps even expand them to other rooms, but then pushed it aside to focus on prepping for Sofia’s arrival.
When I watch those thrillers where the victims knew they were in danger but still did ordinary things l
ike going on a date I always think it the very definition of insanity. Now, it didn’t seem quite so crazy anymore. I wondered if that meant I had joined the lunatics.
F.C. sprawled under the air conditioner while I tidied the house until it looked neat as a pin. Neat as a pin, I thought, again? Expressions should really fade out of use once people had no freaking clue what the hell they were getting at. I stretched my mind trying to come up with the hidden reasoning behind pin tidiness while I turned my room into something approaching a boudoir, just in case.
I was starting the chopping and the peeling and the cooking for what had become the beginnings of a seafood paella, combining most of the ingredients I’d picked up on a whim from the supermarket, when someone rang my bell. I dashed downstairs after checking to see if F.C. was at all concerned. He completely ignored me, so I figured it wasn’t the bogeyman at the door. My heart skipped from apprehensive concern to giddy delight in less than a second. Frankly that I’d remembered to be concerned gave me hope for my sanity.
Sofia Bragga had dressed for our chat in a way that made me feel very confident in upgrading it from a casual evening to a little romantic interlude. I felt underdressed in my jeans as I admired the ivory dress that clung to Sofia’s body like it was a sliver of spandex stretched to fit. There wasn’t much room for underwear that I could see.
She had a bottle of cream liqueur in her hands that she presented to me as soon as I stepped aside to let her in.
“It’s just up the stairs,” I told her taking the bottle from her and closing the door. I was very glad to follow and not lead the way. “I’m still in my work clothes. You’ll have to give me a little time to change into something cooler.”
She glanced back at me. “You could wear a toga, Nilla, and still look fabulous.”
I left her seated at the kitchen counter after checking on the progress of the pots and pans simmering and boiling on the stove. Impulse almost had me emptying my wardrobe on the bedroom floor, but I still had hopes that the evening might be heading in this direction, so I forced myself to study my options from a distance. I picked out a red dress. Pushing aside all doubt in my mind, I slipped into it. It wasn’t tight fitting like Sofia’s but I liked the way it looked on me in the mirror. I let down my hair, gave it a quick brush and walked barefoot back to the kitchen.