Charming Blue

by Kristine Grayson

  He let out a small sigh. “If I had done really well, I would have figured out the curse on my own.”

  “Really?” Jodi said. She hated this kind of revisionist history. If I had done this, then I would be that. Yeah, right. So not true. “How old were you when this started?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “Marriage age.”

  “Which back then was barely a teenager, right? You looked like a man so you were one. That’s how we thought in those days.”

  “It’s not an excuse.”

  “You lived in a magic world where people didn’t confront you, they covered up for you. You had no guidance. You did what you could.”

  His gaze met hers. “You forget. Fifteen women are dead. I did not do what I could. If I had, then they’d be alive.”

  She closed her eyes for just a minute, not sure how to answer him. She couldn’t fix him, and that was what she was trying to do. It was the downside of her magic, trying to make everyone feel better, and sometimes there was no feeling better. Sometimes there was just living with the past.

  He touched her hand, his fingertips warm. That electric charge ran through her, strong and powerful. It was an attraction pure and simple, and it took her breath away.

  She opened her eyes to find him looking at her. He didn’t look at all like the man who had appeared in her bedroom the night before. That man had an innocence in his face. This man had care lines around his eyes, a tiredness to his features. He was handsome, yes, but handsome in the way of a man who had lived a long time and had the trials of his life etched on his face.

  The image she had seen in her bedroom hadn’t been a man but a boy, a boy at the cusp of his life, thinking all things possible.

  This man knew that all things were not possible, and that some things actually harmed.

  He squeezed her hand, then let go, almost ruefully.

  “Look,” he said. “I left the rehab center because I believe you and Tank. I believe I’m suffering from a curse, and I believe whoever cast the curse has done it again. What I’m afraid of is that the cursecaster has been doing this for centuries, to a lot of people, and that we’re just seeing the beginning of it. We have to stop it, and I can’t do that from inside the rehab center.”

  He nodded once, as if he wanted to give emphasis to his words.

  “I have to stop him,” Blue said. “You can’t. Tank can’t. I have to. Not as revenge or anything, but because of what you said. This curse is wrapped in my aura, which means that I carry his magic with me. That means we can find him, through me.”

  “It’s not that simple,” Jodi said. “I can’t just touch you and unravel the curse and have it bring me to the cursecaster.”

  “I know that,” Blue said. “It sounds like the curse has an automatic component to it—he sets it up, and then it runs until he shuts it down, without him having to touch it.”

  Jodi nodded. That made sense, given the fact that the curse had started up again when Blue had noticed her. The cursecaster had to have his attention focused on the Fairy Tale Stalker, not Blue, so the appearance of the image had to be automatic.

  That idea made something ping in her brain. A thought, a realization, but she couldn’t quite grasp it.

  It would come to her.

  “When the time comes,” Blue said, “when we find this guy, then I’ll shut him down. Not you, not Tank. Okay?”

  Jodi frowned. “Why?”

  “Because, to do this for so long, he has to be powerful, and dangerous,” Blue said, “and there isn’t a guarantee of success.”

  Jodi shuddered. “You think he might kill you.”

  “No,” Blue said. “Magic on this level isn’t common. And to destroy it sometimes takes more power than an individual usually has.”

  “That’s why we’ll bring in a specialist,” Jodi said. “Someone who deals with this all the time.”

  “No one deals at this level all the time,” Blue said. “You know it and so do I.”

  She pursed her lips, finally understanding him. “Suicide is not an option.”

  “I’m not talking about suicide,” he said. “But I do remember some of my princely training. When you have a dangerous mission that might not succeed, you don’t send in the irreplaceable expert. You send in someone who can do the job and won’t be missed.”

  Jodi frowned. “You’d be missed.”

  He shook his head. “By Tank maybe,” he said. “But no one else.”

  “Me,” she said. “You’d be missed by me.”

  He touched her hand again, lightly, with a bit of a smile. “You’d remember me, maybe, but we don’t know each other well enough to really miss me. And you’re not going to really miss me. We have to make sure of that.”

  Chapter 28

  “What do you mean we have to make sure that I don’t miss you?” Jodi said.

  Blue took a silent half breath. Damn. He had been thinking out loud, being honest, and that sentence had gotten out. He didn’t know how to explain himself without sounding arrogant.

  And without lying.

  He didn’t want to lie anymore, particularly to this woman.

  The prime rib sliders still steamed. It felt like he had been in this conversation forever, and it hadn’t been very long at all. The ice hadn’t even melted in the iced tea. And none of those observations gave him any way to approach this subject, now that he had (accidentally) brought it up.

  “I—ah, hell.” He gave her a small smile. A frown creased her forehead. He wanted to smooth it away. Maybe he had been talking to himself more than her. And maybe that was the tack he needed to take.

  “I haven’t talked to a woman in a long, long time,” he said, “and I find you attractive.”

  Then he shook his head. He had promised himself he would be honest.

  “No, strike that,” he said. “I think you’re beautiful.”

  Her cheeks flushed, but she didn’t look away. He had half expected her to look away. He wanted her to look away.

  If she had looked away, she would have shut down this part of the conversation.

  But she was interested. Dammit.

  “I’m already attracted, and I don’t know, maybe you always touch people when you talk to them and smile like that, but if I—”

  “I think you’re very handsome,” she said softly. “And I’m well aware of your charm.”

  Which made him even more nervous, since he hadn’t been actively trying to charm her. He’d been trying not to charm her.

  “Then, then, then…” He took a deep breath, trying to stop himself from stuttering. He did not need to know that this woman found him attractive. He wished she hadn’t admitted that. “Then it’s good we’re talking about this, because we can’t.”

  He blurted the words out, keeping his gaze on her face. Her frown had grown deeper.

  “Can’t what?” she asked.

  “Ever be more than colleagues,” he said. “If we can even be that. I’m not even sure how friendship will work.”

  “Work?” she asked. She sounded confused.

  He was making a real mess of this. “This curse. It activates when I notice a woman. We haven’t figured out the time frame. Does it just escalate on its own, or does it change as my feelings change?”

  She let out a small “oh,” as if she could see where he was heading. “That seems awfully complex.”

  “The whole thing seems complex to me,” he said.

  “Spells aren’t usually complex,” Jodi said. “The more complex they are, the easier they are to collapse.”

  “Even evil spells?” he asked. He really didn’t know. “Even curses?”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “This is outside my area of expertise.”

  He nodded, then gave her a small smile. He had smiled more today than he had smiled in a long time. Relief at learning about the curse? Or being out of the rehab center? Or Jodi’s presence?

  He hoped it wasn’t Jodi’s presence, because if it was, they were in trouble. He
didn’t want to be attracted. He didn’t want to think about her. He didn’t want the burden of yet another woman’s life on his conscience.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I hadn’t given curses a second thought until today.”

  She sighed.

  “You did a lot of work last night,” she said. “Why don’t you boil it down for me.”

  He grabbed the paperwork like it was a lifeline. “There are at least three phases,” he said. “And then the phases have at least three components to them.”

  “That makes sense.” She picked up one of her sliders. “Magic likes unity.”

  She took a bite. At that moment, he realized she hadn’t responded to what he had said earlier. She hadn’t agreed to keep this professional, even though she probably would. Except for that blush, he hadn’t even been sure she was listening.

  “From what I can tell here,” he said, “this Fairy Tale Stalker, as the papers call him, his curse seems to be in the first phase.”

  Maybe he had misread her. Maybe that admission of attraction was just a fact, something she was aware of and determined to fight. After all, he had been aware earlier that she had disapproved of him, and then that feeling had changed. Maybe he was the one who had overreacted.

  “First phase meaning that no harm occurred?” Jodi asked.

  So they were going to pretend he hadn’t said anything? He wasn’t sure they should do that, but he also wasn’t sure he should say anything more.

  At least he had gotten it out. At least he had mentioned the elephant in the room. He would discuss it more later if he had to. But at least she knew his concerns.

  “The first phase, a seemingly innocent visit,” he said.

  She started to speak up, but he continued before she could interrupt him.

  “I know,” he said, “in today’s world, popping into someone’s bedroom uninvited is not innocent. But think back to the world we grew up in. Sometimes that was seen as romantic.”

  She took another bite of her slider and chewed as she thought. He took that moment to take a bite of his. The sandwich was good, the prime rib rich and well-cooked. He was hungry. And he hadn’t had something this good in a long time.

  It took a lot of effort not to just wolf it down.

  “Romantic visions,” Jodi said after a moment. “All those small spells even mortals could do by tapping into loose magic, like looking into a mirror backwards on a significant birthday to see your future beloved.”

  “Yes, exactly,” he said. “At first, my wife thought that what she saw that night was a romantic vision.”

  And so did his second fiancée. By the third, people had started to get suspicious, and that whole idea of the romantic vision was turning sour. But at first, that was how both women had misunderstood his arrival—well, not his, but that image’s arrival (the curse’s arrival?)—in the middle of the night.

  “So in some ways,” Jodi said, musing, “this curse is a romance that goes deliberately wrong.”

  “Only it’s old-fashioned,” Blue said. “So in today’s world it seems threatening from the first.”

  She looked at him. His heart did a small internal flip. He wondered if she could see it, that little bit of excitement he felt whenever their eyes met.

  Probably not. He hoped not. Because his life—and because of him, her life—was complicated enough.

  “I know that you’re having trouble remembering the timeline,” she said, “but with you this happened to one woman at a time, right?”

  “I haven’t forgotten that,” he said. “Yes. One woman at a time.”

  She tapped the printouts. “But not to the Fairy Tale Stalker. Several women over the space of months.”

  “Either he’s several guys,” Blue said.

  “Or something is different,” she said.

  He ate another slider as he thought about the differences. “It might be cultural. I met women, but I had to concentrate on one at a time. And many weren’t suitable, so I wasn’t even allowed to think of them.”

  Jodi snorted. “C’mon. Surely there was a village girl or two in your past. Maybe a tavern wench?”

  He shook his head. It was hard to believe now, but he had been a conservative young man. More than that, he hadn’t wanted to disappoint his parents. Of course, he had become the biggest disappointment of all.

  “No,” he said softly. “My first victim was the first girl I was ever serious about. My wife.”

  So long ago. He hadn’t permitted himself to think about her. He had actually been in love. So young, so eager. So lost.

  Jodi put her hand on his arm. “Not your first victim. The curse’s first victim. You have to make that distinction now.”

  “I suppose,” he said. But it seemed like such a minor one to him. His wife was dead, long dead, but dead because of him. Whether or not he had actually harmed her seemed beside the point.

  “The fact is,” Jodi said, “this other man, this so-called Fairy Tale Stalker, is either seeing and being attracted to several women, or the spell is different. Maybe the curse is more sophisticated.”

  “Or maybe it’s not as strong,” Blue said. “Because remember, this is supposed to be a seduction. He shouldn’t use the name ‘Bluebeard,’ and he shouldn’t be telling them he’s going to kill them. He says that in a different tone of voice.”

  “He’s warning them,” Jodi said.

  Blue nodded. “Which means he knows that something is wrong.”

  “I wonder if he knows what it is,” Jodi said.

  “We have to find him,” Blue said. “Because the next stages for these women are sheer terror, followed by death.”

  “What about the heads?” Jodi asked.

  He winced. He hated thinking about that. “What about them?”

  “It seems a major part of the Bluebeard fairy tale is the fact that the young wife sees the heads of her predecessors. Did that happen?”

  “Aside from the fact I only married once,” Blue said. “Yes. When each woman came to the castle, she could see the heads.”

  “And you could see them,” Jodi mused.

  “But no one else could,” Blue said.

  She frowned. “That seems so strange. I’m going to have to do some research here. I mentioned before that it bothered me, and it still does. It bothers me a lot.”

  She cut her last slider in half and ate one part of it.

  Blue finished his last one.

  “But it doesn’t matter,” she said. “These modern women, they should see the heads too.”

  “If it’s the same curse,” Blue said.

  “Or the same cursecaster,” Jodi said.

  “Unless he refined the curse.” Blue shuddered and suddenly regretted that last tiny sandwich. It sat like a lump in his stomach. “Unless he’s been practicing that curse for centuries.”

  “On other people,” Jodi said softly. “You’re not the mass murderer, Blue. Whoever this cursecaster is, he’s the mass murderer. And he’s getting other men, innocent men, to take responsibility for his crimes.”

  She was right. It didn’t stop Blue from feeling responsible, but she was right. They were talking about a mass murderer here, and the murderer wasn’t Blue.

  He had been using Blue. And the Fairy Tale Stalker. And probably countless other men. The cursecaster had used all of them to commit his crimes.

  Blue felt the first threads of a fury he had long buried.

  “Let’s figure out how to stop this,” he said. “I’ll do whatever it takes.”

  Chapter 29

  Whatever it takes meant the first stop was the Archetype Place. Blue had said he was persona non grata there, but Jodi was going to change that. She was a fixer, after all, and she needed the expertise that the Archetype Place represented.

  She didn’t call ahead, though. She didn’t want anyone to prepare for her or to muster up arguments against Blue. He sat beside her now as she turned on the side streets leading to the Archetype Place. He had gotten more and more tense as they drov
e the hour plus to get from Century City to Anaheim.

  The Archetype Place had been built by two so-called evil stepmothers—Mellie, who was Snow White’s stepmother, and Griselda, who was Hansel and Gretel’s. Both got maligned terribly in the fairy tales as retold by the Brothers Grimm. Mellie had lost her magic trying to save Snow’s life, and Griselda had rescued Hansel and Gretel on the night their father had tried to kill them with an ax.

  But the Brothers Grimm apparently had a thing against women, or they deliberately misunderstood most of the stories they had heard, but whatever it was, they had mistold almost every story they had heard.

  And that thought made Jodi give Blue a sideways glance. He was looking out the window, so tense that his fingers were threaded together and his knuckles had turned white.

  Had the Brothers Grimm misheard the stories about Bluebeard? Did the fairy tale about Bluebeard even come from them? She wasn’t sure. She hadn’t researched him—hadn’t even thought to research him.

  But given the terrible accuracy track record of the Brothers Grimm, maybe they had screwed up Blue’s tale too. Although he did confirm a lot of it.

  She frowned, wondering if she should hire someone to check him out in the Kingdoms, wondering if she had time, wondering if she dared.

  She almost asked him but then decided against it. He was still looking out the window, but now he was waving a hand in front of his face. She smiled. The air from the backseat was purple—again.

  When Tank rejoined them in the parking garage beneath Echoes, Jodi decided to put up the car’s top. She thought it would make the long drive easier on Tank. Jodi wasn’t sure if the wind would blow Tank out of the car. If Tank blew out, Jodi worried that she wouldn’t wake up right away and sail into a windshield or bounce under a wheel. Tank would die with a splat before anyone could stop it, and all that would remain would be little gossamer wings.

  Jodi hadn’t foreseen the problem having the car’s top up would cause. Apparently, Tank had eaten her way through Echoes’s kitchen. Tank belched loudly when she got into the car. Then she climbed into the backseat and fell asleep. Ever since, she’d been letting out little fairy farts. The smell wasn’t bad, but the purple vapor trail coming out of the backseat had twice interfered with Jodi’s view of the road. She and Blue had come up with a system where they just rolled down the windows in tandem to clear the purple haze before it became impossible to see through.