It's a Charmed Life

by Selene Charles

  As he said it, he practically ran toward me, and I gasped, holding my hands up, but unable to move away. I was drawn to him. Pulled in despite the clear and obvious signs that the man was impossibly dangerous.

  He didn’t carry a weapon, but then why would he need to? An image of his little girl lying at his feet, dead and burned all, over gave me pause and turned me cold and scared.

  I didn’t know what had happened that night, and I wanted to believe the best. But he could conjure fire. He could kill. I’d seen him with Deedles tonight. Had he hurt his daughter by accident? Had it been him?

  It would explain Alice’s resentment and hatred, but it would not explain his being a man of the law. If he’d killed her, he’d have hung for it. I wanted to ask him because I desperately wanted to know what had happened that night, but I’d felt his pain, and I knew we did not have the time for this.

  I could feel my flesh tingling, feel it burning, feel the water evaporating. It was growing harder to breathe as his flames licked and curled closer and closer toward me.

  I was a creature of water. He was a thing of fire.

  I shivered. “It burns, Maddox.”

  Instantly his fire extinguished, as his tortured gaze roved my face.

  “She’s been sentenced to death, Elle. Death.” His voice cracked and his pain bled through.

  And I watched, as one of the most powerful men I’d ever come across completely shattered in front of me. His knees gave out, and I had to catch him and hold him to me as he trembled with violent, silent sobs.

  His fingers dug into my back as his face slipped into the curve of my neck, bathing me in the salt of his tears.

  I rocked him, holding him to me tight.

  “It’s okay, Maddox. It’s okay.”

  He gulped but couldn’t speak. All he could do was make the most heart-wrenching sounds I’d ever heard in my life. We rocked, holding tight to each other.

  I was scared. So bloody scared because I knew what was happening between us, and it couldn’t happen. This couldn’t be.

  But it was happening.

  Want it or not, it was happening to us both.

  I nuzzled his neck and continued to whisper words I couldn’t know were true.

  “We’ll save her. I know we will. You’re unstoppable, Maddox. You’re so bloody brilliant, I promise we’ll—”

  Then his knuckles were on my cheeks, and he was turning my face toward his. There was a look burning in his eyes. A question. Hope. Fear.

  I nodded once as a single tear slid off my nose.

  He kissed me. This was nothing like what we’d done on the bed. It was only a sharing of breath, saliva, and the taste of one another.

  But I felt my world tremble, felt everything shift out of focus, felt myself falling as a scream built in my throat. But he was there. He was right there.

  Holding me.

  Saving me right back.

  We were so bloody broken.

  I framed his face in my hands. “How many hours have we left?”

  He closed his eyes, touching his forehead to mine as he whispered with grit in his lungs. “Two. Only two.”

  “Then we haven’t a minute to lose. We have to find Mary’s ghost.”

  “I know where she is,” he said in a hushed tone.

  “Where?”

  “The Fox and the Rose. It’s the pub where she was killed. She haunts the grounds.”

  “Bloody hells. Crowley closed it off to us.” I remembered the pub that’d been just behind the trail we’d followed to the endless pool that day.

  He shook his head. “Just the grounds, but not the ghost.”

  “Then we have to go to her. We have to—”

  “Are you well enough to go there? Truth.”

  His gaze was frank, assessing. The waters had eased some of the pain, but I was still queasy. Still dizzy. My head swam like I’d been driven head first into a mound of bedrock. I still wasn’t sure what the Deedles had done to me, and I wasn’t sure I wanted to know, either.

  “I’m fine. I’m fine.”

  His nostrils flared, and his eyes flashed with concern. He knew I had lied.

  “Good,” he said. “I’m glad.”

  Taking the key card out of his jacket, he swiped at the air, calling forth the between. I didn’t want to go in there, but I did. We had a case to solve and an innocent woman to save.

  Hatter gripped my fingers tight as we moved with dizzying speed through the tunnel of light, pulling my head to his chest and whispering in my ear as he lightly rubbed circles on my back. “Just breathe, little siren. Just breathe.”

  And I did just that.

  Chapter 18

  Detective Elle

  We were back in central Wonderland, and my steps were wobbly. I was fighting the urge to throw up with every step I took. The pain in my head hadn’t gone away at all. It’d gotten a little better after the dip in the river, but I was still weak and queasy.

  He gripped my fingers tight, giving me his strength as best he could.

  I swallowed the bile rising in my throat and gave him a weak grin. “I’m fine.”

  His look was slow and measured. “I know.”

  I grinned because I was far from fine and he knew it, but he was letting me do my job, and for that, I respected the hells out of him. I needed my waters, but Alice needed her head more.

  “For what it’s worth, Elle, no matter what happens tonight, I wouldn’t have wanted to make this journey with anyone else. If I ever had a partner, it would be you.” His words were softly spoken, and I shivered.

  I pulled my lip between my teeth, thinking I should say something, but not really sure what. I’d seen his memories. He’d seen mine. He was fire. I was water. I was still in love with the ghost of my dead lover. And Hatter was a mystery I was sure I shouldn’t poke at. But for all that, I’d miss him. His sense of calm in the face of danger. His focus. His mind.

  He moved me as fast as he dared, but though our walk was short, each step had me feeling worse and worse. I wasn’t sure it was just hitting the desk, but whatever the hells the Deedles had done to me surely wasn’t helping.

  When we rounded the corner, I saw a stone façade with patrons moving in and out, some singing, others chatting, a few throwing up by the wall, and some even taking a piss. The noxious combination of odors was making my already-topsy-turvy stomach even worse.

  We were back at the scene of the crime, the very one Hatter and Harry had found themselves at the day I’d arrived. I’d thought then it was the pool tucked behind the pub in the forest that had been important. But I saw everything with a new light.

  I squeezed my eyes shut as I was blasted with another whiff of human filth.

  “Oh Goddess,” I moaned and slapped a palm onto the nearest wall, cringing at the slickness of slime beneath my touch, praying to the goddess I wasn’t clinging to waste.

  He moved around me, gripping my elbow tight. I looked at him, and he looked back at me. Not saying a word, not calling me out on my life. I swallowed reflexively, over and over and over until I shoved the sickness back down.

  We had less than two hours. Everything hinged on Mary the ghost. Everything.

  I should have just let Hatter come on his own. I was only slowing him down. And yet, when I opened my mouth to say the words, something inside of me wouldn’t let me.

  I was supposed to be here.

  I wasn’t sure how I knew that. I just did.

  “What if you drank your water?” he asked slowly.

  I cracked open one eye, absorbing his handsome, serious features. “What?”

  “The water. In your shell,” he pointed.

  My thoughts felt cloudy and a little fuzzy. I had to stop and think about what he was actually saying, but my mind was disjointed, and I was starting to feel cold again. All over.

  His thumb brushed hot against my bare back, and I was frowning, wondering how his hand had gotten underneath my shirt, but his touch felt good, made me feel connected, tether
ed, helped me to think again.

  “I... I need it for—”

  “No.” He brushed hair out of my eyes. “No you don’t. You go back to Grimm tonight, Elle. You go back to your waters soon. Will it help if you drink it?”

  I couldn’t even remember how many days of water I had left in this shirt. I might be condemning myself to a fate worse than death, but the thought of that sweet water sliding down my throat made me ache and feel dry, desiccated. I swallowed compulsively, and then I was frantic, feeling that if I didn’t drink, I might die anyway.

  He gently brushed my hand away and brought the shell to my lips.

  I gasped at the first cool touch of its healing waters sliding down my throat, healing all the aches and pains, helping to erase some of the fuzz in my head, making the cold recede back, back, back.

  I trembled, resting my cheek heavily against the foul-smelling, oozy wall. Hatter’s warm hand still rubbed at my back.

  “Elle. Elle?” he asked, worry inching through his words.

  “Goddess, it smells worse than a pig’s pen here,” I muttered, moaning as I shoved off the door. It hadn’t been much water, but I did feel a little better. Glancing down at my shell, I saw that it no longer glowed. I felt a little panic at how much harder it was now to breathe.

  But I plastered on a smile and nodded. “I’m better, Maddox.”

  “You keep saying that, and I keep pretending—”

  I planted my finger over his lips and nodded slowly. “I’m better.”

  His eyes closed as he breathed me in. I could feel his desperation to get to where we were going and the panic that ate at him, making him believe we wouldn’t be able to save Alice in time. But he wouldn’t push me, no matter how desperate he felt.

  So I took a deep, fortifying breath, ignoring the countless aches and pains, and whispered, “Now, please. Let’s go.”

  He took my hand, curling our fingers together and pulling me along. I was able to follow, and though I felt dizzy, I didn’t feel like I was going to collapse.

  When we reached the grounds behind the pub, I saw the abandoned crime scene tape fluttering like yellow bat’s wings in the slight breeze. There were painted slash lines where MICE had marked points of interest and a spot where the ground was dark, scorched with death’s stain.

  Just a few feet over was a patch of wild halo-shrooms, the very ones Harry had fallen into the night we’d met, and the beginning of the dirt path that wound through the dark woods to the endless pool beyond. Behind us, I heard the revelry of drunkards and the plinking of a piano. The stench of filth and alcohol was heavy in my nostrils, and I had to fight to cling to my sanity. On the air, I felt the prickle of great and terrible energy. Angry energy. Malevolent energy.

  Mary wasn’t happy.

  I nodded and dug my fingers into his vest, still forced to cling to him to remain upright.

  “This is it. I feel her. I feel the presence of something otherworldly.”

  When I looked at him, Maddox was nodding too. “Aye. She’s here.”

  We turned and stared at the patch of withered ground.

  “Mary,” I called softly. “Mary, are you here? Can you hear us?”

  Green and blue lights glowed in the night. When I glanced at Maddox, I saw why. His eyes burned as he saw a vision.

  “Did you see it? Do you know what’s—”

  His jaw clenched as he shook his head. “It was something else. Mary,” he barked. “Mary, I know you’re here. Mary, I—”

  A powerful tempest came out of nowhere, shoving against Hatter and slamming him so hard against the bar wall that I heard the dull crack of skull on stone.

  I gasped, covering my mouth with my hands as horror consumed me. Bobbing because I no longer had him to help balance me, I swung my arms out wildly to help right myself, but I dropped to my knees anyway.

  I saw her, then. A dark, black blot of rage and terror was advancing on Hatter. He was moaning and shaking the stars from his head. She’d flung him so hard against the wall that his eyes looked glassy and glazed and there was blood sliding down his temple.

  “Maddox,” I cried out.

  “Stay. Stay back, Elle,” he groaned and held his hand out to me, telling me to keep away. Then he was gripping at the wall, trying to stand, but unable to. “You, you don’t have to do this, Mary. I will not hurt—”

  Again, that invisible wall cracked against his head, shoving him back into the wall.

  I screamed. “Mary, stop! Just stop! Stop. Please Goddess, stop!” I couldn’t see her for the tears blinding my eyes, but I saw him, his form, silent and slumped on the ground.

  I felt the prickle of dark energy turning, felt the malevolence breathing down on me. My skin felt electrified, and my claws dropped, as did my fangs, though they were useless against the dead.

  I squeezed my eyes shut but forced myself to keep talking. “We didn’t come here to hurt you. I’m... I’m a detective and he’s my partner. Mary, we know. We know. I know,” I hissed.

  She continued to advance, and I felt her hatred growing like a living flame, pressing against me, making my skin burn and my blood scream in my veins as my precious fluids began to sizzle.

  I shook my head, digging my claws into the dirt and hanging my head.

  “I saw him kill you.”

  The fog of revenge paused in its tracks, breathing like a flame down my neck, but not moving.

  I was a siren. But I was also a woman. I knew what it was to fear men. And I knew what it was to want to hurt them all for it too.

  Tears streamed down my face as I opened myself up to the hated, painful memories.

  “I was raped, tortured, and nearly killed by the man to whom my father gave me. And I hated all men for it. Hated them all. Wanted them to burn. To die. And so I did it. I did it, Mary. I killed them. I wrecked them. Destroyed thousands of lives because what Lyre had done to me was a pain too great for me to bear. But then one day I met a man. A good man. A man no one wanted or liked. A man everyone said was the devil himself. He changed me, Mary. He made me better. Made me believe that they weren’t all monsters. Please don’t hurt Maddox. He wasn’t the one who did this to you. In fact, he’s trying to punish the man who did. Another woman is about to hang, Mary.”

  Realizing that Mary was listening to me, I opened my eyes and saw the fog hovering still and silent before me, swirling with impossible and terrifying power, but listening.

  “She’s a good woman, Mary. A good woman. I know she didn’t do this to you, and you know it too. All I’m asking is that you please, please help us to find out who did this. Help us before its too late.”

  “Elle!” Hatter’s voice pierced my thoughts. “Watch out!”

  Confusion pinched me, made me go still. And that was all it took. The black fog moved, pouring down my throat. My body went stiff as a board as the fires of hell consumed me.

  Constable Maddox

  HE GROANED AS HE HEARD the low, heated whispering and realized in a small corner of his mind that it was Elle.

  Terrified for her, but sick and disoriented, he tried to push up from where he lay sprawled on the garbage-strewn ground.

  She spoke of her darkness, a darkness he hadn’t seen, hadn’t known. His heart bled, sliced open by thousands of razor blades. He understood Elle’s darkness, why she would hurt, why she had killed so many. Her banishment from her peoples and realm, the destruction she’d heaped upon those she’d counted as her enemy. It all made sense to him now.

  Through bleary eyes he saw the black shadow listening, drawing slowly and slowly closer. Elle was on her knees, looking small and frail but so brave in the face of the dark witch’s wrath.

  And then she spoke Alice’s name, and when the shadow twitched, he knew what was coming.

  “Elle, watch out!” He reached out for her, trying in vain to warn her.

  But it was too late. Too damned late.

  Detective Elle

  THE DISORIENTATION I’d felt when I’d touched Maddox’s tatt
oos was exactly like what I felt now. I was me, but I wasn’t.

  I was a figure in a cowl, running amongst streets and alleyways as I headed toward the Crypt. I had a baby to feed. I didn’t want to do this, but I was poor, and I had nothing else I could do.

  So I ran, knowing I was about to frame her. She’d been kind to me once. I hated myself, but what was I to do?

  When I arrived, I was ushered to the back door.

  A woman with flowing seafoam-green hair and large, innocent eyes looked grim as she handed me a ribbon.

  “You know what to do.”

  My nostrils flared. “I don’t want none of this business.”

  The siren hissed, her innocent-looking features transforming into cold beauty.

  “You don’t do it, and my husband will see you hanged. If you want your baby to see its twentieth birthday, then you’ll damn well do it. Or he pins it all on you. Your choice, Mary.”

  “I... I don’t think I can.” I gulped.

  She laughed, and the sound was cruel and vicious. “Fine. I don’t care. Even now, the estate has reached out to Crowley. He comes, and if I were you, I’d plant the ribbon or...” She walked up to me, pregnant belly pressing against my own, and I hated the bitch for it, hated her. She laughed, flitting her long fingers around, “Well, dear, I’m sure you’re smart enough to figure out what would happen.”

  “You bitch!” I seethed, gripping tight to the ribbon that felt like death in my hands.

  Her laughter was unpleasant, and her eyes flashed. “You should have never stolen that apple, Mary, or slept with my husband, you adulterous bitch. He thinks I don’t know who sired your bastard, but I know. I’ve always known.”

  She shoved her fist into my stomach, knocking me back on my heels.

  “Isa! Where are you, sweetheart,” a soft, feminine voice called from inside.

  Isa startled and turned to glance over her shoulder. “Just a second, Alice. I’ll be just a moment longer.” Then she turned back to me with a snarl and said, “Do it. Or I tell Snow what you’ve done. It’s a hanging crime, you know, to steal from the Queen.”