"Hello, Allison," said Holly, her tone sounding flat and unwelcoming. "What can I help you with today?" Allison's smile faltered until she noticed me leaning against the doorframe. Her expression grew warmer.
"Tressa! I was hoping you'd be here."
Holly stepped away to give Alison and me space while we talked. However, her curiosity kept her from returning to the storage room. She went over to the display of her purses and fiddled with rearranging them.
"I wanted to make sure everything was okay out at Pine Ridge," Allison said in a low voice. Two inquiries back to back; this wasn't good.
"What do you mean? Everything's fine," I answered, keeping my voice as neutral as possible.
"There have been some crazy rumors floating around my workplace. I heard something about concerts being held out there, or a carnival, or even an illegal campground. And that's the least of it—people are talking about insane things, too: pagan rituals, enchanted forests… even extraterrestrials!" I stared at her, incredulous. Things were worse than I'd imagined.
"I've been worried about Matt," she added without preamble. I blinked a couple of times to catch up with the abrupt change in subject.
"Worried about Matt and the aliens?" I asked. Matt Johnson was Alexander's assistant, our friend, and the only human in our circle other than Holly who could see through fae glamour.
"No," she said, blushing. "He's working too hard. I never get to see him. A couple of weeks ago he told me it would be better if I didn't go out to his place anymore; something about work again. Not that I understand what he does," she grumbled.
"The only thing happening at Pine Ridge is Alexander and I planning our wedding," I assured her. "I can't imagine what started these rumors. As far as Matt goes, it sounds like the two of you need to have a good talk." I smiled, wanting to show that I empathized with her even if I couldn't do anything to help. "You're coming to JR's tomorrow, aren't you? You can talk to him there."
Allison asked a few polite questions about our wedding plans as I walked her to the door. Once she had left, Holly and I went back to check on the children.
"Apparently we've done a terrible job hiding our guests; keeping them isolated on the estate hasn't been nearly enough."
"Do you think it was Allison who made the complaint to the police?" I found this hard to believe.
"It could have been anyone. Admit it, Pix, you just don't like her."
"She works at a resort. I assume Matt took her to Pine Ridge at some point; maybe he stopped because she was snooping around or asking too many questions. And she's always complaining about Matt living so far from town."
"Allison complains because she's sweet on him and wishes they lived closer to each other. Anyway, it doesn't matter who made the complaint; I need to figure out how to better camouflage the camp."
"Tressa, Trayce is clapping his hands!" Sophia interrupted.
"Aye, look at that." The baby touched his palms soundlessly together, fingers spread wide, as he tried to mimic Sophia. His face lit up, delighted by his own achievement. Unable to resist, I reached in and picked up the baby. "Let's get our hugs in and be on our way," I told Sophia.
I hugged Trayce to my chest as Sophia scrambled onto a chair, preparing for her turn to hold him. I kissed the top of his blond head. He had that wonderful baby smell that was impossible to get enough of. His aura was bright and innocent— another mark of his babyhood.
"Something else weird happened this morning," Holly said as I placed Trayce in Sophia's lap. "A Leprechaun came into the store. He was asking for you."
"A Leprechaun? But not Gobban?" She shook her head. "Did he say what he wanted?"
"He didn't. He asked if this was Tressa Danann's 'establishment' and said he wanted to speak with you. I tried to get more details, but he wasn't having it.
I puzzled over this as we left the store, unable to imagine why he wanted me. I'd never been fond of Leprechauns as a whole; they were tradesman who often used pressure tactics or outright cons to move their wares. Gobban was the only one I would call a friend.
Sophia and I walked the dozen or so blocks from my shop to the old feed store where Gobban sold refurbished furniture. The streets in town were quiet; spring was generally the slowest season of the year.
Sophia ran ahead of me when the store came into sight. I was surprised she even recognized it—the outside had a fresh coat of paint over the faded brick façade and a new wooden sign hung from a bar, its iron chain-links squeaking as it swung in the breeze.
I looked up as I passed under it. Although the heavy wood barely moved in the gentle breeze, it seemed somehow transparent and insubstantial. I puzzled over the contradiction as I followed Sophia into the store.
The showroom had been transformed as well. Whereas before it had been tired and old, now it was bright and clean with a fresh coat of paint. Beautifully appointed furniture had replaced the battered second-hand pieces that had desperately needed restoration.
I was still examining the changes when I heard the tapping noise of Gobban's shiny black shillelagh, the fighting stick he used as a cane, as he approached us from the backroom. Sophia ran to greet the old Leprechaun, who's stature was so short that he stood head to head with her.
"Mr. Gobban, I brought you a surprise!" She held out a plastic container and pulled off the lid. "Chocolate chip cookies. I made them myself."
"Is that so?" Gobban asked, taking a whiff of the cookies with his large hooked nose.
"Well… I helped."
"You could make a great trade with cookies as good as these. What would you be asking in exchange?" Sophia scrunched her brow.
"It's a gift."
Gobban blew out a breath and looked over her head at me. His expression accused me of not teaching the child correctly. He shook his head.
"We must make a trade. What would you like in exchange for the cookies?" Sophia tilted her head as she thought about it. Then she smiled and said, "a kiss!"
Gobban pulled back in surprise.
"A kiss?" he repeated, astonished. A smile crept onto his grumpy face. "Then you shall have it." He kissed her cheek.
He turned his attention to me with much less enthusiasm than he had greeted Sophia.
"Why must I keep telling you not to come here?"
"You don't leave me any choice if you won't come to me," I said.
I ran my hand over the top of a highboy with a rich cherry finish and abruptly pulled it back. The dresser felt rough, not at all like the smooth surface I was looking at. My mind raced as I tried to figure out why my senses were giving me contradictory information. I touched the matching headboard with the same result.
"You haven't actually refurbished this furniture, have you?"
"You can feel the real piece?" Gobban asked, sighing in response to my nod.
I turned and took a second look at the transformed showroom, taking in a myriad of small details that I had missed on the first examination. There were stains coming through along the edges of the walls, and the room didn't smell right either; there was no aroma of new furniture, nor any hint of the chemical smells that would linger around refinished wood. And then there was the oddness of the sign outside…
"It's an illusion," I said at last.
"Not a good one, if you can see through it." He limped over to a three-legged stool and sat, holding his shillelagh in front of him. I took the opportunity to appraise the condition of his skin while he moved, taking care that he wouldn't notice.
The burns over the right side of his body and his face had finally healed. Smooth scars remained, but I felt confident that the pain, at least, was gone.
"Do you sell the furniture like this?" I asked, trying and failing to keep the disapproval out of my voice. It wouldn't be the first time he had scammed gullible humans; the last time he had been misrepresenting manmade stones as natural gemstones.
"Don't be daft," he scoffed, his lips twisting into a bitter grimace. "Maybe I could've made the illusions last, before my ab
ility was beat out of me…" He went quiet, his posture deflated with the memory. Then, aware that my eyes were on him, he shook it off, sat tall, and looked at me with an indignant expression. "If you must know, selling used furniture before it's refurbished is hard. People have no imagination. I don't have the time or strength to refinish all the pieces; this way I only need to fix the ones that sell."
I scanned the store again, this time appreciating the magnitude of the illusion he had created. I had met a Banshee once who had a gift for making small illusions, but Gobban had covered his entire store, inside and out.
"You have an amazing talent." Gobban sucked his teeth in disgust.
"You don't know what you're talking about. This is nothing, compared to what I used to do." He would have spit on the floor, but he turned to find Sophia standing next to him. He closed his eyes instead and took a deep breath.
"Why did you come here? Was it to remind me of my debt? I haven't forgotten that I made you a promise. It isn't finished yet."
"I came to invite you to my wedding," I said, grinning. "May first, in the gardens at Pine Ridge."
"How many times must I tell you, we—"
"—are not friends. Aye, I know. However you must come—it's bad luck to turn down a bride."
Sophia leaned against the Leprechaun.
"We're friends, aren't we Mr. Gobban? And I'll be wearing a beautiful dress." He looked at her and sighed.
"I'll think about it. Now will you leave me be?"
We had already started toward the door when I remembered what Holly had told me. I turned and called to Gobban, who was making his way to the backroom.
"Do you know anything about another Leprechaun in Findale and why he might be looking for me?" He stopped and leaned on his walking stick.
"Another Leprechaun in town? Where did you see him?"
"He came into my shop when I wasn't there. My store manager spoke to him."
A pair of customers entered the store just then: a woman and her daughter, effectively ending our conversation. Not that it mattered—Gobban clearly knew nothing about my visitor.
"Good-bye, Mr. Gobban," Sophia said as I held the door open for her.
"Tell me if you see him again," he called after us.
CHAPTER THREE
ALEXANDER
My last class of the day ended with a flurry of laptops and tablets being packed away. The students chattered as they left through the doors in the rear of the room. Several were still grumbling, unhappy with the test results they had just received.
I was packing away my things when I realized that one student, a short stocky girl with big hair, had lingered and was waiting at a polite distance for me to acknowledge her.
"Sarah. What can I do for you?" I asked, although I already knew what she wanted. It was her habit to speak with me after every test I handed back.
"Professor Mannus, can we go over the questions I got wrong? Just to make sure I understand what the right answers should be. Only if you have a minute," she said, glancing up at me shyly.
I took a seat at a desk in the front row of the lecture hall, gesturing for her to sit next to me.
"You got the highest score in the class. You've got nothing to worry about," I said. I told her the same thing every time we went through this exercise.
"I know, but I got these two wrong and I'm not sure why." We spent ten minutes discussing the questions. When we finished, she scurried off with a satisfied expression.
I left the building shortly after her and headed to the parking lot. The late spring days were finally getting longer, and I looked forward to taking a run before the sun sank behind the mountains.
The locks on my truck thumped open, activated by the key fob in my hand. The sound triggered something in my gut: a sensation I'd become accustomed to over the years. It marked a spark of certainty that something was about to happen. I felt a flicker of knowledge that I couldn't explain: Sarah would soon need help.
I threw my laptop bag into the truck, jumping in and throwing it into gear. I pulled out of my parking spot with a squeal of the tires and sped toward Morgan Road just as a loud crash of metal on metal reverberated through the air.
Across the street, near the opening of an adjacent parking lot, two cars had collided. One car had inexplicably swung its nose to the left, hitting an Audi as it was backing out of a parking space.
Sarah, clearly at fault, began apologizing as soon as she got out of her car. The two college boys in the Audi came out of their car, slamming their doors behind them. They stomped toward her, with hands balled into fists.
She backed up until she stood flat against her car, halting further retreat. The boys advanced, purposely frightening her by standing too close and yelling at her, keeping her pinned in place. I recognized them as known troublemakers on campus. One of them jabbed a finger into her face.
"You're going to pay for that damage, bitch. I just got that car."
Sarah's body stiffened; she created a fist around her keys and bit her lip. Her fear ignited a protective instinct in me. The sword I wore scabbarded between my shoulders called for me to wield it, just as it always did when my adrenalin spiked. I forced the impulse back by taking a deep breath and willing my body to relax.
In the moment or two I spent regaining control over my emotions, a man on a motorcycle with an army issued duffle bag strapped to the back pulled up behind the cars.
"What's going on, guys?" he asked, parking his bike and striding over to them. He was broad and thickly muscled, but the boys towered over him.
"None of your damn business." The boys surrounded him, trying to intimidate him with their height and number. He stayed cool and confident, ignoring their bravado.
"Miss, are you okay?"
"She drove right into us. Look what she did to my car!" said one of the boys as I jogged across to street to join the group. Relief crossed Sarah's face when she saw me.
"Professor Mannus, it was an accident. Those women appeared out of nowhere. If I hadn't swerved I would have hit them." She gestured toward three women I hadn't noticed before who hovered by the woods along the edge of the parking lot.
"Of course it was an accident. Is anyone hurt?" I asked the group while staring at the women by the woods. It took a moment for the realization to sink in: I was looking at three oddly dressed Sidhe women with faceted gemstone eyes, pointed ears, and metallic hair. Two of them supported the third, who looked ill. They were gawking at the fighting teenagers and everything around them with wide-eyed wonder, like a first-time tourist in a foreign country.
The students had shaken their heads in answer to my question about being hurt, too distracted to notice the women wearing outdated clothes.
"There isn't much damage to the cars," I said. The young man opened his mouth to argue, but I put a hand up to stop him. "Exchange insurance information and we can all be on our way. Or we can call the police; I'm sure they'll be thrilled to see you guys again. I understand you're very popular with them."
The boys glared at me, as they dug through their glove compartment for their insurance card. I went over to the Sidhe women, turning my back to the college students while they scribbled down each other's numbers.
"Please tell me you didn't flit here in broad daylight," I said in a whisper. The women nodded, their expressions blank. They showed no guilt or surprise that a human would know about their ability to flit. I shook my head, incredulous that they had been allowed into the Human World with so little knowledge. At least they had their glamour up.
No doubt they were heading to Pine Ridge. I would have to help them stay out of trouble. The girl in the middle began coughing—a deep, painful sound. She had other flu-like symptoms and seemed barely able to support her own weight, but I had to finish up with the first problem before working on this one. "Stay here until I get rid of these people."
I returned to the accident as the boys stormed off, glowering at everyone as they pulled away.
"I'm sorry for puttin
g you to such trouble," Sarah said. "But I'm glad you guys came along before they lost it."
"Always happy to help." The man raised his fingers to the brim of his baseball cap, mimicking an old-fashioned tip of the hat. Sarah smiled at him as she drove off. He watched her car as it sped down the road, only then catching sight of the Sidhe. "Now there are some lovely ladies," he said. "Despite the weird hairstyles."
Sidhe are a beautiful race: tall, willowy and elegant. Though their glamour would make them appear human to the stranger, they would still be lovely.
"Thanks for helping with that," I said, bringing his thoughts back to the accident and away from the fae.
"It was nothing," he said with a shrug. "Young men can be such idiots."
I took my first good look at him as he spoke. The man had to be a foot shorter than my six foot two; he was about the same size as Shamus. He wore fatigues, camouflage pants, an olive-green T-shirt and a cap. He also wore tan gloves that matched his skin tone so well I hadn't noticed them from a distance. Nothing on him gave a clue to his rank.
"Are you from the base in Tobyhanna?"
"Yes sir, at least temporarily. Lyle Irving at your service."
"Alexander Mannus, nice to meet you." I held a hand out to shake and he took it. His grip was strong, but there was something odd about the feel of his hand. Noticing that together with the gloves convinced me his hands had been injured at some point.
"What about you?" he asked. "Did you serve?"
"Marines," I nodded. "Two tours in Afghanistan."
"Did that happen while you were there?" He pointed his chin toward my shrunken right arm with its thick white scar scrolling up from my palm to my elbow.
"Yeah." I didn't care to elaborate.
"Looks like you do okay with it," he said. Despite their feeble appearance, my hand and arm were strong and equally as functional as the other, though not because of modern medicine. Tressa's healing abilities had done wonders for me. I was fully conscious of how lucky I was, and how many others were not as fortunate.
He took a final glance at the women before getting onto his motorcycle, saluting me and heading off in the opposite direction. When he was out of sight, I sighed and went to tackle the next problem.
Deaglan's Deception Page 2