by Danica Avet
Blinking the sleep from my eyes, I peered into the deep shadows of my room. Everything looked normal. My window was closed and locked, the thin curtains doing little to hold back the bitter cold. The sky beyond was a deep violet with the faintest hint of orange. Dawn was coming, but I had the sense something more sinister was waiting for me. Not the sunlight, but danger.
My heart slammed against my breastbone. I’d always been a technical failure as a banshee, but I had good instincts and they were telling me Ryvan had something to do with the danger haunting me. I turned my senses outward to find out if he was here in my tiny apartment, but I felt nothing.
I relaxed slightly. It must have been a dream. The banshee queen did not tolerate weaknesses or failure, hence me being called before her constantly. She wouldn’t have accepted one of her flunkies putting a runaway banshee to bed. No, Ryvan had been a figment of my imagination, a reminder of Fairworld I brewed up because of that meeting.
Something jumped in my bed and this time I did scream. It was a piercing shriek that would have made any banshee proud, but it only made Breeze, my cat, yowl with displeasure.
“Oh shit.” I planted my hand over my heart to keep it in my chest. “Oh fuck, you scared the shit out of me!”
Breeze, named for Drew Brees, curled into a twenty-five pound ball and proceeded to clean himself. He always did that when he knew he was in trouble, which was constantly. The little stray I’d rescued when I emerged from Fairworld had grown into a tomcat to beat all tomcats, in his mind, because Breezy lived in the same fantasy world I did. It was one where nothing bothered us and we were masters of all we surveyed. Yeah, the cat and I had a lot in common.
Falling back on my pillow, I stared at my ceiling. Too much excitement—real or imagined—in too short a time left me feeling jittery. If I were an athletic kind of woman, I’d take a jog to work off some of the adrenaline. But as I’d told my grandmother when she decided I needed to slim down, I refuse to run unless it’s on pain of death. And even then, I’m not sure I’d do it. How undignified would that look when whatever I was running from caught up with me? No, I don’t run unless I have no other choice, like when I ran from the Court that last time.
The jitteriness remained, making my fingers tremble.
Sex would have helped the case of nerves, especially sex with the fictional Ryvan. I sighed, feeling that powerful tingle between my legs again. Boy, when I dreamed up a man, I did a damn good job if I said so myself. He’d been…just the kind of brutal man I would have stupidly fallen for back in Fairworld.
My taste in men sucked.
Breeze made his slow, prodding, painful way up my legs. I needed to put him on a diet something terrible, but I loved how chunky he was, except when he walked on me. Those little paws did not distribute his weight very well. Once he found his favorite spot, the center of my chest, he sat down and stared at me.
“She would have hated you,” I told him with a scratch of his chin. The queen had taken everything away from me in a bid to call forth tears. She’d killed anything I felt affection for, destroyed anything I held dear, and I never shed a tear. I hadn’t lied when I said they’d tried every type of torment to get me to cry.
And that’s why I hadn’t dated at all since coming to the mortal plain. Well, that and the fight to survive had taken up all my time. I was a little more settled now, but the only men I met these days were customers at Spankalicious and I’m sorry, but having men constantly tell me they had a pole for me to ride while shaking their dicks at me wasn’t my idea of good date talk.
The sun peeked over the horizon casting its golden rays over the dreary landscape of New Orleans in winter. Another day had arrived. Joy.
I hefted Breeze off my chest ignoring his grunt. I climbed out of bed and put him in the spot I’d just vacated. His slightly crossed green eyes stared up at me before he curled into a ball again. Sometimes he was so easy to please. If only my queen had been the same. I snorted at the thought of Queen Melosia overweight and happy because someone rubbed her stomach.
The floor was cold beneath my feet as I hurried to the kitchen to put a pot of coffee on. Everything looked normal. Cheap and depressing, but normal. I could have afforded something better since I started stripping, but that would require signing things like leases and possible background checks. Since I was technically on the run, cheap and depressing was the best I could do at the moment. It was home, drafty and dirty, but home. The saggy sofa, the small table with one chair, the sink filled with dishes I refused to wash until I ran out of plates. No fairy cleaners had appeared out of thin air to clean my place. Again. Dammit.
I loaded the filter to the brim with Community Dark Roast coffee and filled the reservoir. The only item worth anything in the apartment, other than my palace uniform and sword, was my coffeemaker. Fairworlders didn’t drink it because they could use their power to give them a kick start. I’d become addicted to the stuff as soon as I crossed over.
On my way to the bathroom for a shower, I kicked a pile of clothes out of my way. I promised myself I’d do laundry sometime this month. Okay, maybe this week. I was running out of things to wear. Damn, but I missed having servants to clean up after me. I’d never realized how messy I was until I lived on my own.
It was a wonder Breeze didn’t get lost in the piles of clothes all over the place, but he seemed to like it. He frequently hid in the piles waiting for me to walk by so he could pounce. If I cleaned all the time, I’d deprive my poor, fat cat of his one means of entertainment. See? I can make excuses for anything.
The water took a while to warm up, but then I was used to that as well. Stepping back into the bedroom to strip, I paused. Dark bruises covered the front of my body. Moving to the mirror above the sink, I saw a scrape healing on my forehead.
It hadn’t been a dream.
“Don’t freak out,” I told my pale reflection. “Obviously, Ryvan realized he had the wrong banshee and…brought you home and left.”
Yeah, right. I braced my hands on the sink, staring at the rust stain around the drain. As much as I wish I could, I couldn’t lie to myself. Ryvan Keller was real and he’d brought me home, only to disappear again. Why bother if he was supposed to bring me back to Fairworld? Why in the hell would the Court want me back anyway? They’d made their feelings about me, and my continued existence, very clear. If they wanted me back, it was only so they could finish me off.
Breeze’s rumbling purr announced his arrival in the bathroom. He gave my leg a cursory rub before hopping on the toilet and then onto the sink to stare at me.
“Why didn’t you sit on him?” I accused the cat as I ripped off my clothes. “You could’ve…I don’t know, done something!”
He chirped and blinked unconcerned green eyes at me.
“You probably rubbed all over him,” I muttered as I stepped under the lukewarm spray of the shower. “Sometimes I wish I would’ve gotten a dog.”
Merew?
“I know, banshees and dogs do not get along, but at least a ball-licking dog would’ve barked or howled or something to let me know there was someone in my apartment.” I scrubbed myself, ignoring the puckered scars on my torso. I’d have to buy some more glamour juice if I was going to keep my job at the club. “One day you’re going to have to start pulling your weight, Breezy. This can’t be an all take relationship on your side, you know. This is a partnership. I feed you, you…do something. Got it?”
Mrrrow.
“What will you do if that elf comes back, huh? He plans to take me to Fairworld and then where’ll you be? Hungry, that’s where.” I rinsed off, glad I didn’t have to shave. I don’t know how mortal women did it. I’d never get anything done if I had to shave my legs. I guess there was a plus side to being a banshee. “So you and I have to come to an agreement. You let me know if we have intruders and I keep feeding you the good stuff, okay?”
A rumbling purr, loud enough to hear over the trickling shower, was my answer. Pleased with our daily conversation, I
shut off the water and stepped out of the tub. Breeze arched his back, barely keeping his balance on the edge of the sink. I loved that damn lazy cat and he knew it.
I opened the medicine cabinet over his head and grabbed the little bottle of Scar-Gone Glamour. I had maybe three gulps left before I’d need to buy more. That was going to cost, but at least now I made decent money. I took my dose, shuddering at the bitter taste.
Dropping my towel on the floor I stared down at my torso and watched the scars fade away. The glamour would last for fifteen hours. It would be enough time for me to go to work, make a few hundred bucks in tips, and hit Phineas’s store for a glamour spell as well as a protection ward before coming home.
Ryvan wouldn’t get into my apartment so easily next time.
* * *
Chapter Three
The ogre who lived down the hall stared at me like a rabid dog when I tiptoed by his door. I really hated having him as a neighbor, but at least I didn’t have to worry about gang fights with him around. Since I’d been living in the complex longer than the ogre, he considered me part of the property. Now if he just kept to his side of the hall, I’d be happy.
Because I was still freaked out about Ryvan being in my apartment, I splurged on a taxi ride to the French Quarter. The driver, a fairy with a fake Caribbean accent, chatted for the entire trip like I was a tourist. I mumbled in the appropriate spots and almost jumped from the backseat when he squealed to a stop in front of Jackson Square. I tossed him the fare and a small tip and stepped away before he could curse me for being tightfisted.
I breathed in a deep breath, the scent of fresh beignets and café au lait wafting to me from Café Du Monde. Like a lemming headed for the cliff, I followed the other customers through the line. I almost danced in place, my stomach howling for a taste of the decadence that was beignet until I got my double order of Heaven.
I took my baggie to my usual spot in front of the Cabildo. I nodded over at a regular setting up her fortune-telling stand. Tourists wandered around with their cameras out, their eyes up at St. Louis Cathedral’s mighty spire instead of the pickpockets waiting for them. I shook my head and sat down to enjoy my breakfast while doing my second favorite thing in the world. People watching.
It always amazed me how welcoming humans had been when Fairworlders came out to them. By rights they should have come after us with their nuclear missiles and whatever kinds of weapons they had now, but they hadn’t. Of course, it probably had more to do with the Fairy Queen’s Court than anything else.
I’d never been to the Fairy Court, but Queen Melosia had frequently entertained emissaries from Queen Tamsyn. I hadn’t been allowed near them because of my lowly status, yet I hadn’t minded. I was perfectly content to watch the strange elves and fairies go about their business. They were magical beings, graceful and beautiful, and for the most part, good. However, I never forgot that though they seemed too perfect to be dangerous, they were. All Fairworlders could destroy, no matter how pretty they looked on the outside.
It’d been Queen Tamsyn of the Fairy Court who instigated talks with the humans. She’d so awed them with her beauty, grace, and magic, they hadn’t thought twice about allowing her people to cross over. Fifty years later, there was a steady flow of traffic going back and forth between Fairworld, Earth, and the other dimensions that had opened up.
I licked the powdered sugar from my fingers, ignoring the lecherous grins of a couple of human males standing a few feet away. That was probably the only thing I didn’t like about living in New Orleans, the tourists who thought this was their private playground. I’d had to tell more than one flashing-for-beads woman that this wasn’t Vegas. What happened in New Orleans ended up on the Internet.
The males eventually left, drawn away from me by a couple of working girls who looked like they would prefer to sleep rather than entertain a couple of young men. Mentally wishing them luck, I wrapped my skirt tighter around my legs and watched the humans and Fairworlders weave through the square.
“Magda,” Crystal, a human palm reader, called out from her stand. She waved me over with a friendly smile.
It might sound stupid, but fortune tellers make me nervous. Maybe I believed too strongly that one of them would accidentally read my future and point out how horribly I was going to die, but whatever the reason, I stayed away from them. Unfortunately, I actually liked Crystal with her wild brown hair and snappy brown eyes.
Trying to hide my discomfort behind a shiver for the cold, I climbed to my feet and walked over to her. She had everything she needed around her table and looked ready to take the psychic world by storm.
“I was wondering if I’d see you today,” she said as I neared her.
That did not sound good. We weren’t such good friends that we looked for each other. “Oh?”
She leaned forward on her lawn chair, ignoring the warning creaks of the nylon. “Yes! I dreamed about you last night.”
Shit. I did not want to hear this. “I have to go. I’m helping Mitz with her dance number this afternoon.”
I should have been able to get away from a human, but she was surprisingly fast and strong for her age and species. She snagged my wrist in a firm grip. Fire danced up my arm and shot straight to my heart.
I gasped at the power in her touch. I knew there was a good reason I’d never shaken a psychic’s hand. They might be human, but they had a power Fairworlders would never know, the power of mortality.
“I need you to listen to me,” Crystal said in a strange, double-layered voice. It was her voice of power and it made my skin crawl. “There is darkness coming for you.” I glanced at her, fear making my heart pound. Her brown eyes swirled with white and she didn’t blink, her attention focused on me. “When your greatest desire is recognized, it will come for you and take you to your nemesis. You must defeat her, Magda O’Quinn, or you will lose everything you hold dear. The tree screams for blood and you must feed it.”
Her hand fell away, the white fading from her irises. She blinked at me and smiled. “Magda! Did you have breakfast yet?”
* * * *
I roamed the Quarter the rest of the day trying to forget about what Crystal said. I tried to tell myself I didn’t believe in fortune telling, that it was all bullshit for the tourists, but I’d felt the power in her hand. She might not have meant to have a dream about me, might not have even realized she had, but something had talked through her.
I shivered, huddling deeper into my jacket. The only nemesis I had was the banshee queen and there was no way I could ever defeat her. She not only had the most power of all banshees, but she also led an army of Red Cap goblins whose sole purpose was to keep her on the throne. I did not want to be added to the list of victims who fed the goblins’ need for blood.
As for my greatest desire, the only thing I’d ever wanted was to be loved for who I was. I suppose all beings, no matter what species, felt the same. I knew it stemmed from my grandmother giving me over to the queen to train. Most banshees were left with their families for the first twenty years of their life. Once they’d learned the rudiments of swordplay and war, they were tested and sent to specialized mentors to hone their natural skills. I’d gone into service with Queen Melosia when I was no more than ten. Forty years spent in the Wailing Court with no one but the queen and her advisors as my family had ensured I would have no idea of what it was like to be loved.
I snorted, startling a demon businessman who eyed me suspiciously before hurrying away. Yeah, yeah, whine, whine, no one loves me. Big deal. There were a lot of people in all the dimensions who managed without it. I could do the same. At least I had Breeze who gave me all the gentle affection I needed to function as a normal being instead of a monster.
As for the tree screaming for blood, that was a riot. Though there are all kinds of man-eating plants in Fairworld, they wanted flesh, not blood. Crystal had gotten her dreams crossed or something. Everything was fine.
Familiar music pounded against my ears and I loo
ked up to see my feet had brought me right to Spankalicious. The building seemed so innocent in the light of day, but the minute the sun set, the lights would come on luring males of all species to its ancient oak doors.
I shuffled my feet, not ready to go in, but knowing I had to. The club was closed to the public right now, yet that didn’t stop potential customers from prowling the sidewalk in front. They looked at me with hungry intent, their eyes skimming the posters next to the doors until they found my picture. Their eyes snapped back to me with heat and lust and in some of their eyes, my pain.
Yeah, I couldn’t stay out here unless I wanted to become someone’s brunch. Damn. I knew I should’ve gone to the French Market to loaf around for a couple of hours. Now I’d have to sit at the bar until Mitz showed up.
I heaved a deep breath and hiked my backpack higher on my shoulder. I had a dance routine to work out with Mitz before my set in three hours.
Yay for work.
* * *
Chapter Four
Whitesnake’s “Slow An’ Easy” blared through the club as I went through my set. I’m not the best dancer in the world, nor am I particularly gorgeous, but I have big tits and a bubble-shaped ass which is what the customers were here to see. Spankalicious wasn’t a full nudity club, but there was very little left to the imagination. The G-string barely acted as a shield against the hungry gazes crawling all over me.
I’d grown somewhat immune to being exposed in front of so many men. The humans weren’t so bad, but some of the paranormal males were outrageous, some species I’ve never even heard of tended to hang out in strip clubs. Sometimes I wished those other dimensions had stayed closed. I could deal with the beings from Fairworld, but the demon dimensions and some of the off-world dimensions had weird beings. They’d only emerged from obscurity after Fairworlders were welcomed on the earthly plane without being slaughtered. Well, other than the few very bad ones who refused to follow human laws.