Fairy, Neat (Fairy Files Book 6)

by Katharine Sadler

  Even Pippi looked shocked by the sound of that voice in our midst. We all spun in our seats and watched as Benny strode into the room dressed in a purple, velvet leisure suit and a leopard-print fedora. I had no idea where he found his clothes, but he certainly knew how to make an impression. Behind him were three women and four men I’d never met, but who carried themselves with a cockiness and bravado similar to Benny’s.

  Benny and his entourage filled the large room. “You want to go with us where?” I asked, thoroughly confused. Benny was living with Indigo, Rube, Ransom, Lilith, and Pally in his old house, and he’d been doing a good job of keeping to himself. As far as I knew, no one had told him about our planned journey to Rubalia.

  Benny tsked. “Don’t play coy with me. I know you’re going to Rubalia to push the nightmares back into their own world and we want to help you do it.”

  Benny never did anything that didn’t benefit himself in some way, so I was wary of his offer. I also understood that having a dragon on our side couldn’t hurt. If Benny wanted to kill me, he could have done so several times over. I looked around at the group of friends I’d gotten together. “I don’t trust him,” Frost said. “But he’s damn good at killing things.”

  Vin nodded. Hieronymus stuck his nose in the air like he smelled something nasty and Pippi rolled her eyes and scowled. Good, everyone agreed. “What do you have to offer us, Benny?” I could have asked what his ulterior motive was in helping us, but that would just incite his dramatic instinct and he’d wax on for an eternity about all the ways people had let him down and mistrusted him based on an unfair stereotype of dragons.

  Benny puffed up his chest and smirked. “I think it’s abundantly clear what I have to offer, princess, should you wish to partake.”

  Frost didn’t even bother to growl at Benny’s innuendo. “When trolls fly, Benny. Answer the question.”

  He sneered. “I have my awesome abilities as well as those of the seven trained and powerful dragons behind me.”

  Seven dragons? Which meant we’d have eight dragons on our side. Eight enormous, sharp-toothed and clawed beasts on our side. I’d never officially met any dragons other than Benny, though I had killed a few, and I wondered if all dragons were as self-absorbed and conniving as him. If they were, we’d also be gaining eight dragons who could potentially turn on us at any minute with very little motivation.

  “What’s your price?” Hieronymus asked, his tone curt and crisp. He had none of my reservations about questioning Benny’s good intentions.

  “No price,” Benny said.

  “There is always a price with dragons,” Hieronymus said.

  Benny sighed. “What do I have to do to earn the trust of you people? We want to help. We hate the nightmares even more than you do and would enjoy slaughtering them.” His lack of posturing and drama when he spoke, made me think he just might be sincere.

  The dragons behind Benny wore staid expressions, their bodies still as statues, their mouths in flat lines. They didn’t look to be the sort who enjoyed much of anything, but maybe I was being judgmental. I looked to Hieronymus for his opinion, because he’d probably had more interactions with dragons than I had.

  “We want a contract,” Hieronymus said. “Signed in blood by all parties.”

  Benny didn’t flinch or deflate. “Of course,” he said. “Must we do that now? Or can we join this planning party?”

  “Contract first,” Hieronymus said. “I will write it.”

  I got Hieronymus the necessary tools, paper and pen. He bitched about the ease of modern technology that made an ink pot and quill obsolete, but he wrote the contract and then we each pricked our fingers and, using toothpicks dipped in our blood, signed our names. Hieronymus grumbled about the inefficiency of toothpicks and Benny complained that he had all the best tools at his house but no one had consulted him about the meeting.

  That done, Benny and his friends sat and we explained to them what we’d discussed so far. “Once we cross through the portal,” Benny said. “We can do a fly over and get an idea of how many obstacles we’ll have to cross to reach your rebel leader. We can make sure she’s where you think she is.”

  “Good,” I said, feeling a bit better about our plan. “Do you have any special skills or requirements we should know about before we leave?”

  “No.” Benny stood. “If we are done here, I must speak with my gatekeeper replacement.”

  I stood with him. “What are you talking about? I’ll just get one of my people to be the gatekeeper while we’re gone.”

  “No offense, Chloe,” Benny said. “But your people are a bunch of soft-hearted, teary-eyed doormats. The gatekeeper needs to be intimidating and hard or he will be walked all over.”

  “Or she,” I said. It annoyed me that he was being so pushy, but it annoyed me more that he might be right. Not that my friends were wimps, but that the gatekeeper needed to be tough and to let the new immigrants know they’d be expected to follow the rules. The gatekeeper needed to be scary and intimidating. Indigo was tough, one of the strongest people I knew, but she was a nurturer at heart. Everyone else was busy with jobs that kept them away from the portals too often for them to do a good job.

  “What?” Benny asked.

  “A woman can do the job as well as a man.”

  Benny waved me off. “That is exactly the sort of touchy, sensitive attitude the gatekeeper doesn’t need to have. I’ll let you know when I’ve found a replacement and you can meet him if it will make you feel better.”

  I really wanted to tell him to stuff his gatekeeper and his opinions in a dark, dank hole, but I didn’t have time to hunt for a substitute gatekeeper. And fighting about this would be a waste of everyone’s time. “Fine. But I’ll be interviewing her, not just meeting her. And she won’t live in the house full-time.”

  Benny didn’t acknowledge me, but he didn’t deny me, either. He gestured to his entourage and they stood and left with him.

  I sank back into my chair and sighed. “I’ll meet with Winifred tomorrow to get the amulets. Pierson and my staff have collected over five hundred vials of fae-blind human saliva and blood. I can’t imagine we’ll need other weapons.” My friend Letty had unintentionally discovered that the saliva and blood of humans who couldn’t see the fae was toxic to the nightmares, for reasons Sapphire was having a ball trying to figure out. Winifred, a local voodoo priestess, and her friends had made amulets that allowed us to elude the nightmares’ glamour and see them as the tiny, frail mutants they really were.

  “It’s always a good idea to have more weapons,” Pippi said. “I’m arming my people with pikes, swords, and maces.”

  I didn’t ask where she’d found such archaic weapons. I really didn’t want to know. “Can you arm the rest of us?” Hieronymus asked, clearly unhappy with calling an amulet and a vial of bodily fluids weapons.

  “I’m really good at sharing,” Pippi said. She didn’t overtly leer at Hieronymus, but there was a husky intimation to her voice that caused Hieronymus to blush. Pippi just loved to cause trouble, it was in her genetic make-up.

  “Please, just share weapons, Pippi,” I said, “and we will all be very grateful.”

  She grinned and leapt to her feet. “I should head out. I want to lay the law down extra hard so no one gets any ideas about taking my territory or messing with my people while I’m gone.”

  We waved her off. “I really don’t like her,” Hieronymus said.

  “And I really doubt she cares,” Vin said, an amused lilt to her voice.

  “Okay,” I said. “I think we’re done here. We’ll meet tomorrow at…Wait, where is this portal we need to cross?”

  Vin smirked. “It’s about an hour west of Sarsaparilla. In the suburbs.”

  I shuddered. “We’ll meet here at four in the afternoon and we’ll carpool to the portal. I’ll let Benny and Pippi know.”

  Everyone nodded and we left.

  ***

  I sighed as soon as we stepped into our condo. Fro
st shut the door and wrapped his arms around me as we took in our living room. The ugliest and most wonderful fairy fountain gurgled away in the corner and our Christmas tree, decorated with kitsch, glowed in the center of the room. Wrapped gifts were piled beneath it, more gifts than had been there when I’d left that morning.

  “I think someone broke into our place and left us a bunch of stuff,” I said.

  “Must have been Santa Claus,” Frost said, his voice rough and husky.

  “There’s no such thing as Santa Claus.” My words were tight and my eyes were a bit misty.

  “Funny,” he said. “I used to believe there was no such thing as fairies.”

  I spun and wrapped my arms around his neck. “What have you done?”

  “You never got Christmas as a kid. That’s a travesty I’ve taken upon myself to make right.”

  “You do too much. I don’t need gifts or fancy dinners.”

  “You don’t need them, but you deserve them.” He pulled out of my arms, grabbed my hand, and led me to the tree. “Besides, you haven’t even opened your gifts, yet. Don’t be too grateful until you’ve seen what I got you.”

  I sat on the plush carpet and he handed me gift after gift. I opened them all in a frenzy of paper and ribbons. He’d clearly had the gifts professionally wrapped, but I wasn’t about to complain. When I was done, I studied the pile of stuff I now had. “Really?” I asked. “You thought I had a great need for a closet organizing kit?”

  “I’m not saying I don’t love the pile of cardboard boxes in the guest closet, but—”

  “Come on, you know it’s driving you crazy, you neat freak.”

  “I think you should be focusing on the lovely jewelry box I got you. Have you even looked inside it?”

  No. No, I hadn’t. I’d been in a frenzy of gift-opening, the like of which I’d never experienced before. And it really was the most perfect jewelry box ever. It was shaped like an old-school record player from the nineteen-eighties or seventies, but it had drawers where it might have had speakers and it even had doors, behind which were hooks for hanging necklaces.

  In one drawer, I found a pair of tacky, sparkly unicorn earrings that made me shriek and bounce in place. Frost laughed and gestured for me to keep going. In another drawer was a cameo ring that was so large it was ostentatious, a perfect mix of class and tack. Behind one of the doors was, not another piece of jewelry as I’d been expecting, but a delicate pair of wings made of glass. A pair of wings I knew had been made by Letty, because I’d admired them at her condo on a recent visit.

  I pulled them out and cupped them in my hands. They shimmered and sparkled as though lit from within. “I thought this was destroyed by her ex-boyfriend.” Letty’s ex, Tony, had gotten a little angry when he lost his job shortly after she’d dumped him, and he’d broken several of her art pieces.

  “No,” Frost said. “I bought it before that.”

  “How did you know?”

  He smiled fondly. “You told me about it. I do listen sometimes, you know.”

  He listened all the time and really was too wonderful for words. “Thank you,” I said. “I…It’s perfect. You are the best husband.”

  “I know,” he said, with a smirk. “I’m even going to help get all your kitsch organized in the closet.”

  I rolled my eyes. “I actually do have something for you.”

  I reached behind the tree, pulled out a large package, and handed it to him. I hadn’t gotten him a lot of gifts, just the one, but it was more meaningful than a closet organizer, so I hoped he loved it.

  He unwrapped it and stared at the framed picture for so long, I wondered if I’d made a fatal mistake.

  Finally, he looked up at me and his smile took my breath away. “Chloe,” he said. “This is perfect.”

  It was an enlarged photograph of the sun rising over the mountains where Frost had grown up. Standing on the mountaintop and silhouetted in front of the sun were the shapes of five wolves, his mother and four of his pack mates. His mother had gotten someone to take the picture after I’d explained what I wanted, and it had come out perfectly.

  “Good,” I said. “Can we have Christmas sex, now?”

  He put the picture down and opened his arms. I straddled his lap, kissing his neck and sliding my hands under his shirt, so eager for him. He tasted and felt so good, like heaven, like mine.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Trust issues are universal. As is distrust of politicians.—Chloe Frangipani

  People think I’m stupid, because of the way I dress and talk. The same people will judge a man in fine clothes, with a refined accent, a good and wise person. I never make such mistakes.— Archibald Smith

  “You let me do all the talking in there, you understand, sweetheart?” Smitty asked.

  We were standing outside the mayor’s office, waiting to meet with him about a campaign to normalize the fae and to draw tourists to Sarsaparilla. Indigo and Rube had been working to find talented fae who were interested in performing and they’d found more than we’d expected.

  I narrowed my eyes. “As long as you remember not to call me sweetheart in front of the mayor. Can you tone down the good-ol’-boy for the meeting?”

  Smitty, in a suit and tie, still looked like a mountain man. He was burly and had a beard that covered more than half his torso. I could see comb marks in his damp hair, but his look was still closer to Albert Einstein than well-groomed.

  “I am a good ol’ boy, Chloe.” Smitty pretended to look hurt, but I didn’t buy it. He must have sensed my apathy, because he turned to Frost. “I can’t change who I am.”

  Frost smirked. “I really don’t care who you are, as long as you take care of us and our rights.”

  Smitty smiled. “That’s what I’m good at.” We’d met with Smitty in Frost’s office and been over what needed to happen at this meeting with the mayor. Technically, fae didn’t have rights, because fae didn’t exist. Luckily, Frost and I were both citizens of the United States and human, according to our birth certificates, so Smitty felt confident in his ability to protect us and our assets. “And you have to trust my approach. I am not an urban intellectual, that’s not how I operate. If you want some guy in a suit that costs more than my last house and speaks all them high-falutin’ pretty words, you’ve got yourselves the wrong guy.”

  “Just use the words necessary to keep the mayor from steamrolling us.” I was essentially saying the same thing Frost had said moments before, but I didn’t see the harm in over-stating it.

  “Mayor Wood is ready to see you,” the mayor’s secretary said in a polished, clipped voice. She pretended not to have overheard our bizarre conversation, but I saw a definite twinkle in her eyes.

  We followed her down a short hall and into a conference room. Mayor Wood, a woman, and a man, all in business suits, sat on one side of the table. Mayor Wood stood and shook our hands. “Chloe Frangipani, Aiden Frost, and Mr. Archibald Smith, it’s good to see you. I have with me today the head of our marketing team Mary Reynolds and our tourism director Dwight Anderson.” Mary and Dwight stood and shook our hands, and we all sat.

  “Thank you for agreeing to this meeting on such short notice,” I said. “Frost and I are heading out of town tomorrow and we don’t know when we’ll be back. Today was the only day Smitty…I mean, Mr. Smith, could meet before we left.”

  “We’re just glad you were able to meet with us,” Mayor Wood, clearly on his best behavior because he wanted something from us, said. “Ms. Reynolds has worked up a marketing plan for the fae attractions, but it would help to know just what sorts of talents we’ll be working with.”

  I pulled a folder from my bag and laid it before them. “I’ve got a list here of the talents of the potential performers. If you decide to use them in one of your shows, I can provide names and contact information.” Indigo had found dancers, singers, and musicians, as well as more exotically skilled fae who could breathe fire, or make a plant grow with a snap of their fingers, or curdle milk with
a look, or repair shoes with amazing alacrity and ability. I wasn’t sure all the skills would be worthy of a show, but I was a bar owner, not a stage manager. Since we didn’t want to provide anything that even approximated a fae registry, I wouldn’t provide names and addresses until we were sure there was a place for the fae in question. I passed the list to Mary Reynolds. She was a petite woman with glasses that didn’t make her look any older or wiser. She looked to be just out of college, but she met my gaze with confidence and her eyes displayed intelligence.

  She looked over the list, her eyes widening behind her glasses. “This is a wide array of abilities.”

  “You may not be able to use them all,” I said. “But we weren’t sure that you couldn’t. What we’re lacking is a choreographer or a stage manager, someone to take all these disparate talents and make them into a show that will entertain both those who can see the fae and those who cannot.”

  Mary looked down the table at Mr. Anderson, a middle-aged man with a severe expression. “Dwight,” Mary said. “Do you know any choreographers who might want to take on this job?”

  Dwight frowned and crossed his arms over his chest. “I enjoy going to the theater, Mary. I don’t know choreographers.”

  “Yes, but I thought you said you knew—”

  “We’ll just advertise, Mary,” said Mayor Wood, frowning at the young woman. “As we do for all jobs or potential jobs. Can you write up the ad copy?”

  “Yes. Of course,” Mary said, her cheeks red with embarrassment.

  “Good,” said Mayor Wood. “Now, let’s discuss what we’d like for Mr. And Mrs. Frost to do for the advertising campaign.” Frost and I hadn’t discussed whether I’d change my last name, but the mayor appeared to assume I would. “Dwight, perhaps you’d like to take the lead on that?”

  “Of course, Mayor,” Dwight said. “I’ve had a few ideas recently, in fact. I believe we should have a billboard welcoming fae to our fair city on every road leading into town. We could use photographs of Chloe with her fairy wings out and maybe Frost could…” He looked at Frost, his smug facade slipping a bit. “Can you, Mr. Frost, let only certain parts go wolfy at a time?”