Charming Blue

by Kristine Grayson

  “Don’t tell me how to do my job,” Tank said, but she flew away from Jodi toward the horrible thin man. Jodi felt even more moving air, and then Tank’s entire posse appeared, all of them wearing black goth lace dresses or Victorian topcoats and pants. Jodi counted at least fifty of them, and she wondered how Tank had assembled them on such short notice.

  “You don’t look so good, buddy,” Tank said to Blue as she flew over him.

  “Yeah, well, your magic still smells like baby powder,” he said, and Jodi smiled. Apparently she wasn’t the only one who had noticed that.

  “Shut up or I won’t help you,” Tank said, but they all knew it was an idle threat. She was hovering over his hands as she spoke. The posse had gathered around the horrible thin man’s face.

  Jodi, for one, felt a lot calmer now that someone with useful magic was here—not that hers wasn’t useful, not that she hadn’t done something really good—but she was at her limit, and that thought made her knees wobble, and she sat down.

  She was exhausted. When was the last time she had used that much magic all at once?

  “Is he unconscious?” Tank asked the posse.

  “Can’t tell,” someone said.

  Tank cursed, creatively and powerfully, then said, “That tears it. We’re not dealing with this jerkwad on our own. I need three of you.”

  Three members of the posse flew over to Tank. Blue was watching it all, his head still at that awkward angle. Jodi wasn’t sure if he was staying that way because he was afraid to move or because he couldn’t move.

  “We need binders,” Tank said. “And nothing gauzy. It has to be tough. Got that?”

  The three fairies nodded, then went to work, flying around the horrible thin man’s wrists. Eventually Blue’s hands, the horrible thin man’s hands, and the fairies themselves vanished in a flurry of fairy dust.

  Blue looked over at Jodi and smiled. He hadn’t stopped smiling. Did that mean he felt better, or was he just putting on a good show?

  She didn’t know. But she did know that her next task would be to put this room in order. Goo still dripped from every surface, sending little smoke clouds into the air. She would have to clear out the bad magic, just so this room would be habitable again.

  But she couldn’t quite bring herself to move. Not yet at least.

  Then the door burst open, and Young Gregor tripped as he came in. He looked wobbly and still much too pale.

  He saw Tank and said, “Oh, thank the Powers you’re here. You vanished on me.”

  Tank ignored him. She was giving orders to the rest of her posse.

  Young Gregor sank into the chair next to Jodi. “I got a hold of Selda. She sent Tank. But you know that.”

  “Thank you,” Jodi said tiredly. She wasn’t sure what they would have done without Tank.

  “Selda’s coming. She’s bringing an army. She says you shouldn’t worry about this place. She’ll deal with it. She sees it as another magical crime scene.”

  “Because I killed two parasites?” Jodi asked.

  “An extension of the other magical crime scenes,” Young Gregor said. “And maybe a clue as to what happened centuries ago. There’re a lot of unsolved deaths at the hands of Mr. Danvers over there.”

  Jodi looked sharply at him. “Danvers?”

  “Yeah,” Blue said.

  “Was he married?” Jodi asked.

  “Oh, yeah,” Young Gregor said. “His wife was a chatelaine, but she was the meanest chatelaine I had ever met. She came to the Greater World long before I did.”

  “And worked for a friend of mine,” Jodi said. “Died in a terrible fire that I’m pretty sure she set. Hitchcock made an Oscar-winning film about that whole incident. Minus the magic, of course.”

  In fact, Jodi had walked off that set when it became clear that Hitch was going to follow the novel rather than the actual events. For all his love of the macabre, Hitch wasn’t much of a believer in magic, no matter what he witnessed—and he had witnessed a lot more than he was willing to admit.

  “Okay,” Tank said. “Blue, I think you can let go now.”

  Jodi leaned forward.

  The smile had left Blue’s face. “If I let go and you’re wrong, we’re all dead.”

  “I’m not wrong,” Tank said.

  Blue let out a small breath, then raised his hands toward his face. His hands looked cramped, only half-open.

  The horrible thin man—Danvers—stirred, his eyes popped open, and he glared at Blue. “I’ll make you pay, you son of a bitch. I’ll—”

  One of the posse dropped a dirty sock in Danvers’s mouth, and then half the group covered it with fairy dust, holding it in place as effectively as duct-tape would have.

  Jodi liked that the magical all seemed to think alike about this guy.

  “You owe me,” Tank said to Blue. Then she waved her little arms. “To the Fates!”

  She vanished, along with her posse, and the horrible thin guy. Fairy dust floated in the air like dust motes. Blood still marked the floor.

  “She hates the Fates,” Jodi said. “She avoids them at all costs.”

  “She must have figured out this was the only way to deal with Danvers,” Blue said. He still hadn’t moved.

  Then Tank popped back into the room.

  “Sorry. Forgot something,” she said, then flew over the Young Gregor and grabbed him by the ear. “I need your testimony.”

  She grinned at Blue, then waved her free arm. “To The Fates!” she said again.

  Then she and Young Gregor disappeared.

  Jodi let out a small sigh. Then she got up from the chair, went over to Blue, and crouched beside him. “Let me help you up.”

  “I’m not sure I want to move,” he said.

  “We can take you somewhere,” she said. “I’m sure there’s someone who can help you.”

  His hands were still crabbed. He slowly flattened them on the floor and winced, as if the very act of doing so hurt.

  Then he levered himself upright, so he wasn’t in that awkward position. He moved his head in a circle, and Jodi heard something in his neck pop.

  “Well,” he said, “I’m going to be bruised.”

  “You fell hard,” Jodi said. “I’m amazed you managed to hang onto that Danvers character.”

  “That’s all I could think about,” Blue said.

  “I’m amazed you were thinking at all,” she said. “I thought you were a goner.”

  “Is that why you kissed me?” he asked.

  She was going to say something snide, but she couldn’t bring herself to do so. She smiled, and the very act of smiling brought tears to her eyes.

  “I was going to do mouth-to-mouth,” she said. “I got sidetracked. It’s lucky you didn’t need the CPR after all.”

  “You’re right,” he said. “It wasn’t the CPR that saved me.”

  “I know,” Jodi said. “You didn’t need saving.”

  “You know, for someone who has lived in and worked on fairy tales all her life, you sometimes miss the obvious,” Blue said.

  She frowned. “What do you mean, the obvious?”

  “There’s a reason people wake up with a kiss in a fairy tale,” he said.

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  He smiled and slid a hand around her neck.

  “Kisses,” he said, gently pulling her head forward, “have a magic all their own.”

  Chapter 53

  Kisses did have a magic all their own, and so did Jodi. Her magic was subtle, difficult for others to notice, but oh so important when it wasn’t there. She had used it to its limits all day, but she still had some left. Just enough, in fact.

  She leaned against Blue, separating from the kiss. He reached for her, and she put her forefinger on his lips. He kissed it. She smiled.

  “One second,” she said.

  She had to concentrate, a sign that she was tired. She leaned forward and with a wave of her hands, got rid of the goo. Then she stood, pushed open the bedroom door, and s
lapped her hands together several times as if she were playing the cymbals. The clothes disappeared. The windows opened for a brief moment, and a strong cool breeze—from somewhere else, not LA—filled the air.

  She snapped her fingers at the sheets. They rose off the bed and vanished. New sheets, unused sheets from the laundry room in the basement of the motel, hovered over the bed, like sheets in a fabric commercial. Then they landed on the bed, the blankets on the floor. New pillows and towels arrived too, just a moment later.

  Finally, she turned toward the main door and barred it. She knew Selda and the crime scene folks were coming. She didn’t care. She left a magical do-not-disturb sign outside, although if she was honest with herself, it was more like she had taken a tie and knotted it around her dorm room door.

  Then she extended a hand to Blue. “Your aura’s coming back,” she said.

  “I didn’t know it was missing,” he said.

  “For a few minutes there, when I thought you were gone,” she said. She couldn’t say dead. She didn’t want to think dead anymore.

  He took her hand and let her help him stand. He had color in his face. He looked stronger, maybe than he ever had.

  And oh, the charm. He was lethally handsome, amazingly beautiful, and stunningly gorgeous.

  Or maybe that wasn’t charm at all. Maybe that was just him.

  She kissed him.

  He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her back, pulling her so close that she couldn’t tell where she ended and he began.

  Then he said, without taking his lips from hers, “You cleaned the room.”

  “I figured we needed some privacy,” she said, “and I really didn’t want to drive across LA again.”

  She could feel him smile. Then he kissed her, long and slow, his mouth opening, taking her in. She had never been kissed like this, not once in her long life. It felt like the very first time.

  He paused and moved his head just enough to take his lips away. She felt the loss. He kissed her forehead, and it felt dismissive.

  Then he sighed. “Do you know how long it’s been since I’ve done this?”

  “Made love?” she asked.

  He half chuckled. “I actually meant kiss someone.” He paused again, then said, “I’ve never made love.”

  “Never?” she asked.

  “Not once,” he said.

  “You were married,” she said.

  “My wife died. Before…” And that sad look returned.

  She hated that look. She could spend the rest of her life making sure that look never came back.

  The rest of her life. She had never thought that before about anyone.

  She was sure about it with Blue.

  She stood on her toes so that she could find his mouth again. “We’re going to have to fix that. You know, when we were young, the man was supposed to be the experienced one.”

  “I know,” he said. “I’m sorry—”

  “But,” she said, speaking over him. “This is the Greater World. Women are liberated. Which means that we can lead sometimes.”

  She kissed him. He kissed back, his eyes half-closed, his body pressed against hers, his arousal obvious.

  She slid her hand down his arm until she found his hand. “Come on, my handsome prince. Let me teach you a few things.”

  His cheeks were flushed, those miraculous blue eyes sparkling. “Only a few?” he asked a bit breathlessly.

  “This time,” she said. “I’ll teach you more next time. In fact, I know a lifetime of things.”

  He swallowed visibly, and for a moment, she thought she had frightened him off.

  “Jodi,” he said, “a lifetime? That’s not something to joke about.”

  Her fingers threaded through his. “I’m not joking.”

  “A lifetime, though,” Blue said, his voice shaking. “You realize that I’m a recovering alcoholic, right?”

  “You drank for a reason,” Jodi said.

  “Everyone drinks for a reason. I learned how to drink to excess. I’ll be going to AA all my life. I’ll probably have to do some outpatient work with Dr. Hargrove. I really need to learn this stuff this time.”

  Jodi pulled him close and kissed him again. “Hmm,” she said as she broke the kiss for just a moment. “A man who cares enough to get better. That sounds wonderful to me.”

  “It’s work,” Blue said. “It’s—”

  “And maybe this is why you lack experience?” Jodi said. “Your propensity for conversation?”

  He almost answered her, then stopped himself and grinned. “Point taken,” he said and pushed the bedroom door open all the way. “I see clean sheets.”

  She pulled him into the room. “I promise you,” she said. “They won’t remain clean for long.”

  Read on for an excerpt from

  Wickedly Charming

  by Kristine Grayson

  ***

  He’s given up on happily-ever-after…

  Cinderella’s Prince Charming is divorced and at a dead end. The new owner of a bookstore, Charming has given up on women, royalty, and anything that smacks of a future. That is, until he meets up with Mellie…

  But she may be the key to happily-right-now…

  Mellie is sick and tired of stepmothers being misunderstood. Vampires have redeemed their reputation, why shouldn’t stepmothers do the same? Then she runs into the handsomest, most charming man she’s ever met and discovers she’s going about her mission all wrong…

  ***

  “Grayson deftly nods to pop culture and offers clever spins on classic legends and lore while adding unique twists all her own.”

  —Booklist starred review

  “I love this take on an old story… Exceedingly endearing…”

  —Night Owl Reviews Reviewer Top Pick

  Available now from Sourcebooks Casablanca

  Chapter 1

  Book Fair

  The very words of the sign filled Mellie with loathing. Book Fair indeed. More like Book Unfair.

  Every time people wrote something down, they got it wrong. She’d learned that in her exceptionally long life.

  Not that she was old—not by any stretch. In fact, by the standards of her people, she was in early middle age. She’d been in early middle age, it seemed, for most of her adult life. Of course that wasn’t true. She’d only been in early middle age for her life in the public eye—two very different things.

  And now she was paying for it.

  She stood in a huge but nearly empty parking lot in the bright morning sun. It was going to be hot—California, too-dry-to-tolerate hot, fifty-bottles-of-Gatorade hot—but it wasn’t hot yet. Still, she hoped she had on enough sunscreen (even if it did make her smell like a weird, chemical coconut). She had her hands on her hips (which hadn’t expanded [much] since she was a beautiful young girl, who caught the eye of every man) as she surveyed the stunningly large building in front of her, with the banner strung across its multitude of doors.

  The Largest Book Fair in the World!, the banner proclaimed in bright red letters. The largest book fair with the largest number of publishers, writers, readers and moguls—movie and gaming and every other type of mogul the entertainment industry had come up with.

  It probably should be called Mogul Fair (Mogul Unfair?). But people were pitching books, not pitching moguls (although someone probably should pitch moguls; it was her experience that anyone with a shred of power should be pitched across a room [or down a staircase] every now and then).

  This season’s books, next season’s books, books for every race, creed, and constituency, large books, small books, and the all-important evergreen books which were not, as she once believed, books about evergreens, but books that never went out of style, like Little Women or anything by Jane Austen or, dammit, by that villain Hans Christian Andersen.

  Not that Andersen started it all. He didn’t. It was those Grimm brothers, two better named individuals she had never met.

  It didn’t matter that Mellie had set
them straight. By then, their “tales” were already on the market, poisoning the well, so to speak. (Or the apple. Those boys did love their poisons. It would have been so much better for all concerned if they had turned their attention to crime fiction. They could have invented the entire category. But noooo. They had to focus on what they called “fairies,” as misnamed as their little “tales.”)

  She made herself breathe. Even alone with her own thoughts, she couldn’t help going on a bit of a rant about those creepy little men.

  She made herself turn away from the gigantic building and walk to the back of her minivan. With the push of a button, the hatchback unlocked (now that was magic) and she pulled the thing open.

  Fifty signs and placards leaned haphazardly against each other. Last time, she’d only needed twenty. She hoped she would use all fifty this time.

  She glanced at her watch. One hour until the Book Unfair opened.

  Half an hour until her group showed up.

  Mellie glared at the building again. Sometimes she thought of these things like a maze she needed to thread her way through. But this was a fortress, one she needed to conquer. All those entrances intimidated her. It was impossible to tell where she’d get the most media exposure. Certainly not at the front doors, with the handicapped ramp blocking access along one side.

  Once someone else arrived to help her hand out the placards, she could leave for a few minutes and reconnoiter.

  She wanted the maximum amount of air time for the minimum amount of exposure. She’d learned long ago that if she gave the media too much time in the beginning, they’d distort everything she said.

  Better to parcel out information bit by bit.

  The Book Unfair was only her first salvo.

  But she knew it would be the most important.

  ***

  He parked his silver Mercedes at the far end of the massive parking lot. He did it not so that he wouldn’t be recognized—he wouldn’t be, anyway—but because he’d learned long ago that if he parked his Mercedes anywhere near the front, the car would either end up with door dings and key scratches, or would go missing.

  He reached into the glove box and removed his prized purple bookseller’s badge. He had worked for two years to acquire that thing. Not that he minded. It still amazed him that no one at the palace had thought of opening a bookstore on the grounds.