Fashionably Fabulous: Book Eleven of The Hot Damned Series

by peterman, robyn

  “Zanthia is pretty heinous,” Susu said, scrunching her tiny nose.

  “Duuude, understatement,” I told her with a laugh. “Fairies have horrific taste.”

  Susu calmed a bit and perched on the edge of the ornate marble coffee table—Vampyres had some over the top and questionable taste as well. Astrid was trying to tamp the décor of the Cressida House back a bit, but there was only so much she could do without making all the over-the-top Vamps cranky.

  “They didn’t used to be so tacky,” Susu explained. “Zanthia used to be lovely when you ruled. Now? It’s a carnival from Hell.”

  “Why?”

  “The Corrine,” the Mini-Elf hissed.

  “She’s dead.”

  “Best day of my long fucking life,” Susu growled. “And she tasted like shit.”

  “Okaaaaay,” I said on a gag, letting my chin drop to my chest and shaking my head. The day just continued to get stranger and grosser. My tiny Prada-clad Guardian Angel ingested bad guys and gals? “You ate her?”

  “I most certainly did—well, her head. I ate her head after that hot Vamp, Prince Ethan, ripped it off. Lulu and Huhu took care of the rest of the nasty skank. And I don’t regret it at all. She tried to hurt the baby and she poisoned you five hundred years ago. She was an evil wankbitch and she deserved it.”

  “Yes, well, I suppose I should say thank you, but I’m kind of gacked out right now. You feel me?”

  “Totally,” Susu said with a shudder and then launched herself back into the air. “Let’s change the subject. Tell me the words that you hate.”

  “Seriously?” I asked wondering what evil thing I’d done in my past to end up with Susu as my Guardian Angel. Plus, her question was personal. I wasn’t really sure it was a good plan to reveal any weaknesses to the flying hot mess.

  Squinting my eyes at the small menace, I was curious as to how she’d gotten into the Cressida House undetected. The Vampyre compound and home to my BFF was warded and protected within an inch of its undead life.

  “Astrid let me in,” Susu volunteered with a shrill giggle as she went back to her air aerobics and revealed her ruffled purple panties, which were in stark contrast to her sleek mini-Prada dress.

  Wait a freaking minute.

  “Son of a big hairy butt. You can read my mind?” I demanded, waving my hand in the air and trying to close whatever random brain door that might be open inside my head. Since I had no actual clue what I was doing, I was now covered in silver, pink and gold Fairy dust with the beginnings of a massive headache coming on. Freakin’ great.

  “Yes!” Susu squealed. “But only when you think really loud. And just for the record, you didn’t do anything evil in your past to deserve me. You deserve me because we’re both fabulous! Yes, I’m wearing Prada. Ruffled panties are super cute when my dress flies over my head which is often and I’m seriously hard to kill so you can squash me like a bug whenever you want to!”

  Speechless. I was speechless. Well, kind of. We were going to nip this shit in the bud if she was going to barnacle herself to me.

  “Ground rules,” I announced, plucking Susu out of the air and dangling her in front of my face. “Do not go into my mind unless invited. It makes me itchy. When I get itchy, I turn into a monster—literally. I’m a fairly attractive monster in a monster-y way, but you really don’t want to see that.”

  “Will do. I mean—won’t do. Won’t go into the mind unless invited. What else?” Susu chirped.

  “The Kev’s body parts and thinking about banging him are off limits. I’m the only one allowed to discuss him in any kind of sexually inappropriate way. You feel me?”

  “Roger that.”

  “If you’re going to eat someone, I’d like a heads up. I have an active gag reflex and hurling in front of crowds is not my idea of a good time.”

  “Reasonable,” Susu agreed with a nod of her head. “You done?”

  “For now,” I said, wondering if I’d missed anything important. Susu seemed fairly literal. “I reserve the right to make more rules. Because even though I’m not quite right in the head at the moment, I don’t want to kill you. It feels wrong. So every time I feel like blasting you to Kingdom Come, I’ll just add to the rules. Cool?”

  “Cool,” Susu replied and then kissed my nose before she did a double backflip with a twist that would have put me into traction. “Can we bond more now?”

  “Umm… do I have a choice?”

  “Not really,” she squealed.

  “Then have at it,” I replied with an involuntary grin. At least she wasn’t boring.

  “Words you hate?”

  “Are you going to tell me yours?” I asked, narrowing my eyes.

  “Do I have to?” she asked with a small frown on her lips.

  “Yep. You do. If you have ammunition on me, I need to have it on you. Tit for tat, my little buddy.”

  “You like me!” she screamed in a pitch so high I was sure my ears were bleeding. “You called me buddy!”

  “Oh my Hell,” I groaned, slapping my hands over my ears. “Ground rule. If you ever scream like that again, I will render you mute and dress you in polyester. Forever.”

  “Not a prob,” Susu whispered with a wide grin. “You’re fabulously vicious. I looooove that! Polyester sucks ass. Okay, I’ll go first so you’ll love me. I hate the word moist.”

  “Creamy,” I countered.

  “Slacks,” she shot back, clapping her hands together in delight.

  “I totally agree on slacks. Biscuits,” I admitted with a shudder.

  “Nutritious,” she choked out.

  “Really?” I asked with a laugh. “That’s weird.”

  “Biscuits?” she shot back.

  “Yessssss,” I hissed. “Off limits. I mean, we can eat them, but not label them.”

  “What will we call them?”

  It was a good question. “How about…”

  “Flaky circle bread?” Susu suggested.

  “I can work with that.”

  “Do you love me yet?”

  Cocking my head to the side, I eyed my insane Guardian Angel. “You’re growing on me.”

  “Like a flower?” she asked.

  “More like a fungus,” I replied. “But a nice-ish one.”

  “That will do for now,” she said with a giggle as she swooped in and kissed my nose again. “You will love me. I can feel it.”

  “You wanna know what I feel?” a horribly familiar voice grunted from the doorway.

  And yet again my day continued to go south. Martha and Jane stood in the doorway dressed in sky blue lacy booty shorts paired with lime green sequined bra tops that barely covered their sagging boobs. However, the most painful part was the orange house slippers and black socks.

  “Nope,” I snapped and eyed the undead nightmares.

  Both old bags were ninety something and looked every day of it, which was odd as Vampyres were usually beautiful. Martha and Jane were almost identical—bony bodies, sagging bosoms, sparse tufts of gray hair on their heads and wrinkly faces. And their sense of style? Appalling.

  “Awwww, come on,” Martha grumbled and glanced around. “Where’s your beard?”

  “My Queen has no beard,” Susu hissed indignantly. “She is the most beautiful woman in the Universe. I’m second.”

  “They mean The Kev,” I told my Guardian Angel with an eye roll. “The numbnuts think because he’s a Fairy that he’s gay—hence my beard—even though that makes little to no sense.”

  Susu’s eyes grew wide and then she went into a fit of laughter that even made me smile despite having deal with the obnoxious dingbats. Astrid, in a regrettable moment of compassion, had the old women turned as they lay dying at her feet. They were a blight on the Vampyre species, but they’d also been instrumental in saving baby Samuel, so they were safe from beheading—by Astrid. By me? The jury was still out.

  “So I was thinking…” Jane started.

  “Dangerous,” I cut her off. “And potentially dea
dly.”

  “Listen, Hairy Queen,” Martha chimed in.

  “Fairy Queen,” I corrected her sternly and bit back my grin. If you gave them an inch they took three hundred miles.

  “That’s what I said, Dairy Queen,” Martha continued with a sly little smirk. “Jane and I are going on tour and we thought since you’re going back to Zanthia soon and we’re fucking rock stars in that particular part of the Universe, we’d just tag along and do a few gigs.”

  “Naked,” Jane added.

  “Not happening,” I told them with a shudder. Naked? I wasn’t even going to touch that one.

  “You sure about that?” Martha inquired looking far too confident for my piece of mind.

  “I am,” I said warily, waiting for her next move.

  “Wanna know our new band name, Dingleberry Queen?” Jane asked, looking alarmingly innocent.

  What fresh Hell was about to go down? They had nothing on me that would make me take them to Zanthia. Nothing. I wasn’t sure I wanted to go to Zanthia. I certainly wasn’t bringing two foul-mouthed, unmedicated, undead rabid squirrels with no sense of fashion. I already had a certifiable Guardian Angel.

  “I want to know the name,” Susu squealed as I swatted at her to shut her pie hole.

  Susu had no clue what we were dealing with here. Astrid would probably be pissed if I offed the old biddies. Wait. No. She might be relieved. No, I couldn’t, incinerating old women because they dressed badly and annoyed me was a poor choice.

  The Fairy Queen—or Dairy Queen, which I was kind of partial to because Peanut Buster Parfaits were awesome—would not randomly kill subjects just because looking at them made her want to upchuck. It would feel good for a second and then it would suck all kinds of wads.

  “Creamy Nutritious Moist Biscuit Slacks. C.N.M.B.S for short,” Martha said while twerking a victory circle around Jane. “Guess we’re going to Zanthia with the Scary Queen.”

  Maybe killing them wouldn’t suck. Snatching Susu out of the air as she screamed in horror at the use of all the words we hated combined into one sentence, I tried something.

  “Can you hear me, Susu?” I asked inside my mind as I kept an eye on the dancing monstrosities gyrating with glee.

  “Yes!” she replied. “You want me to eat them?”

  “Umm… I think I’m supposed to say no to that,” I told her. “Can you wipe their minds of our words?”

  “I can try,” Susu said. “They’re undead so it might be a challenge.”

  “Will it hurt them?”

  “Do you want it to?”

  “Pretty sure I’m supposed to say no to that one too,” I told her with a grin. “They’ll tell everyone our words and that’s out of the fucking question. Plus, there’s no way in Hell I’m taking them anywhere. Ever. I’d rather get the word biscuit tattooed across my butt than hang out with these assbags. You feel me?”

  “I feel you,” Susu said with a giggle. “Your wish is my command. Shall I make them forget anything else?”

  “While that is incredibly tempting and wonderfully devious on your part, I definitely think I’m going to say no to that one.”

  “You’re a far better person than I am. I’d just eat them and call it a day.”

  “We’re going to have to have a sit down and discuss your methods at some point,” I said, trying not to gag. “Do you need me to freeze them? Or knock them out by banging their heads together really hard?”

  “Nope. They have to be awake for this,” Susu replied and kissed my nose. “I’ve got it.”

  “Great. I need a break. I’m gonna go for a little walk. How long will this take?”

  “Give me an hour or two.”

  “I’m starting to like you,” I told her.

  “I know. I’m very likable.”

  “And self-deprecating,” I added with a laugh as I waved my hands in the air.

  Gold, pink and silver Fairy dust appeared and cloaked my body in its tingling enchantment. I knew exactly where I needed to go. I needed normal even if it was fleeting. I was going to treat myself to my quickly fading past one last time. With a blink of my eyes, I left the suite.

  Part of me wished I could blink my eyes and stop time, but time marched on no matter what.

  No matter how much I wanted things to stay the same, it was not to be. However, I was good at compartmentalizing and that was exactly what I was going to do.

  The Dairy Queen was going to go get some ice cream.

  Chapter Two

  “Scoot your sorry ass to the left,” Astrid said as she shoved me over in the booth.

  “To the left? Or to the left, to the left?” I shot back with a grin, grabbing the edge of the table so my ass didn’t hit the floor.

  “Just one left, Beyoncé.” Astrid laughed and plopped down next to me.

  Being jerked out of my silly daydream was jarring. Getting practically ejected off of a bench by a Vampyre was par for the course in my life lately.

  “Aren’t you supposed to be doing something important—like saving the world?” I asked with a raised brow as I swirled a finger in my melting mint chip ice cream. The green ice cream in the brightly colored paper cup didn’t even come close to comforting me the way my best friend’s presence did.

  “Did that shit last week. I’m on a paid vacation at the moment. What’s your excuse?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted, glancing around the small shop and trying to memorize my surroundings. “Feeling nostalgic.”

  Hattie’s sold one thing and one thing only. Ice cream. Homemade, full of fat, heart attack inducing ice cream. It was one of my favorite places. It was a haven. Long ago Hattie had unofficially adopted Astrid and me as her de facto daughters—even hired us to do odd jobs around the shop in exchange for as much ice cream as we could eat. Life was so much easier then.

  Well, not easy, but in Hattie’s shop our lives made some sense. She’d had rules and she’d loved us. Astrid’s mom had been awful. And mine? My mother had been absent—both physically and mentally. Now they were both dead.

  Astrid’s mom’s demise was violent due to the fact she was trying to kill everyone and take over the world. My mother… she’d simply faded away and died as quietly as she’d lived. Now that I knew what I was, I often wondered if she’d known. She’d paid so little attention to me that her uncaring attitude ceased to bother me. She was so distant that I was curious if she had even been my mother.

  If it hadn’t been for Hattie and Astrid’s Nana, I’m not sure what would have happened to us. Although one could argue that becoming an immortal Fairy Queen and a Vampyre who was also a True Immortal wasn’t exactly normal, but at least we were still alive and kicking for the most part. Technically, Astrid was dead but she rocked undead like no one else I knew.

  Astrid and I had happily wasted much of our childhood sitting in this very same booth doing homework, scouring fashion magazines, and dreaming big dreams. The peeling reddish brown vinyl had seen better days, but it made me feel safe. It was familiar while everything else in my life spiraled out of control.

  “Will you eat some black raspberry chip if I order it?” Astrid begged with a pitiful sigh as she stared with envy at all the flavors behind the counter.

  “Dude. Always.”

  As a Vampyre, my BFF couldn’t eat food as blood was the preferred cuisine of the undead. And trust me, she’d tried with disastrous results. However, right after she’d been turned we’d discovered if she fed from me she could taste what I’d eaten in my blood.

  “Hattie,” I called out. “Can you make me a triple black raspberry chip in a cone cup?”

  “With sprinkles—tons of sprinkles,” Astrid added quickly.

  “Sure, Sugar Buns,” Hattie said with a grunt of delighted laughter. “You got somethin’ you wanna tell me? You already powered through a large mint chip.”

  I felt the heat from my neck rise to my face. I was not knocked up. Hell, I didn’t even know if that was a possibility for me anymore. Plus, I’d not had
a real good example of a mother to emulate. I’d probably suck at it. The Kev and I certainly hadn’t used any protection and we’d been very busy. The thought of making a little Fairy with The Kev both thrilled and terrified me—but mostly terrified me.

  “Umm, nope,” I told Hattie firmly. “No bun in the oven—just jonesing for something sweet.”

  “On the rag?” Hattie inquired as we watched her scoop out the ice cream. Her fleshy arm wobbled as she worked and it made me smile.

  Hattie was beautiful and kind and good. She was also nosy and wildly inappropriate.

  “Not this week,” I said, happy that no one else was in the shop. Not that I’d seen many of my old human friends lately. Once you realize you’re not exactly mortal anymore, it made life a bit more complicated. This was the first time in ages Astrid and I had even been to town.

  “I tell you what,” Hattie went on as she dumped so many sprinkles on top of the ice cream, I thought Astrid was going to cry from pure joy. “When Aunt Flow quit visiting me, I had a dang party. I mean, it was like shark week back in the day. I am so glad to be done with that pain in my fat ass lady business.”

  “Me too,” Astrid whispered and elbowed me.

  As a member of the undead population, Astrid no longer had any bodily functions. She also didn’t breathe. The lack of bodily functions I was down with. The not breathing part? Not so much.

  Thankfully Fairies weren’t dead. Technically, we were immortal, but could definitely be killed. Case in point? Me. Apparently I’d been poisoned five hundred years ago. I was still wrapping my mind around that little fact. Believing the unbelievable was not easy.

  “Here you go,” Hattie said as she put the bowl of ice cream on the table. “Astrid, you don’t want any?”

  “No thanks. I’m on a weird diet,” Astrid replied—not exactly lying. “Trying to get healthy.”

  “You’re lookin’ a little pale, Sugar Lips,” Hattie said, eyeing Astrid critically. “Don’t you be doin’ one of them liquid diets. It’ll kill you dead faster than my Earl siphoning gasoline while smokin’ a cigar and blowing up like a tick at a blood bank. God rest his cheatin’ bastard, son of a bitch soul. You got a long life ahead of you, Sugar Bottom. You need to eat. Maybe you should put some of that silver, pink and gold glitter all over you like Gemma is sporting. Looks real nice.”