Cry Me a River

by Livia Quinn

  How did I know that River had been kidnapped? I had nothing to go on except my intuition about Paige and the circumstances to say my brother hadn't met some other fate.

  The next package requiring a signature was for Mrs. Trickett, a new customer in a gothic Victorian that would have fit right in down in New Orleans. It was a narrow purple two story with gold trim and Mardi Gras beads strung along the ornately designed porch railing. I got the feeling this was a year round design statement, not just for the upcoming holiday.

  A slender giant of a man answered the door and asked me in. "Please make yourself at home. I'll be right back. I need to turn the fire off on the stove and wash my hands." Even in the high ceilinged rooms it was necessary for him to duck to get through the doorway.

  He left me in a cozy living room of French provincial furniture mingled with child-sized duplicates, including a plushly upholstered high chair. If not for those high ceilings, I would have found the tiny rooms claustrophobic. A life-like doll was propped on the fireplace mantel, her neck wrapped with Mardi Gras beads that swung down over the stone, casting firelight around the room like cheap diamonds.

  She was a little too life-like, the moisture trickling down the doll's temples a dead giveaway. I respected her right to be incognito so I didn't stare, but I couldn't help but think if she was a faerie and the tall guy was her son… "That had to be painful."

  "You have no idea."

  I jerked. The little faerie's rigid posture relaxed and she wiped the sweat from her skin, moving butt over hands to the end of the mantel, careful not to catch the fabric of her skirt. The young man returned and ran to her side, glancing at me, ready to take on any threat to his mother. "Mom, be careful."

  "Sit down, Junior," she said and gathering the crisp taffeta in two fists, leapt from the mantel to make a perfect landing in the elaborately decorated high chair. "I haven't lived all these years without adapting to my lack of height. Sign for the package will you, Val?" she smiled at her son. Then she turned to me. "You're Tempest Pomeroy, aren't you?"

  I gaped. How did this little faerie know me? I'd never delivered her mail before today. While I scanned the package and held the form for her son to sign, she explained, "I'm friends with Phoebe and Dutch. We go way back."

  How far back, I wondered. She smiled, anticipating me. "Since before you were born. But, that story will have to wait for another time. You have work to do and a lead to follow."

  I stared at her. What lead? The subject of her past was apparently closed… for now.

  Val still hovered over his mother and she waved her hand at him, "Val's friends think I died in childbirth. So on the rare occasion that he brings a girlfriend home, I must play the stuk speelgoed—I'm sorry, my mum's word—a child's toy."

  Val sighed, "She's forever being picked up and tossed around like a play thing." His shoulders slumped. It was obvious he loved his mother very much. "Luckily she heals quickly." His eyes glinted, "I have to stay close in case the doll bleeds or sweats. That's when she's in danger of being exposed."

  "If you wouldn't keep the house fire so high, son…" When Val returned to the kitchen, she said, "He's very protective. But enough about us, have you found your brother yet?"

  "How…"

  Mrs. Trickett rolled her eyes and dropped her head back on her chair. "Novices. Girl, you need to spend more time with Aurora like your parents intended. Then you'd know what's going on around here. Tell me this. Are you aware that a fae guest went missing from Bella and Petre's Inn?"

  Bella and Petre ran the only B&B in Destiny, the Faerie Inn. If a fae had gone missing recently it might have something to do with River's disappearance.

  Arabella and I usually had coffee together by the swamp on weekends but since River had disappeared, I hadn't seen her.

  "No, I wasn't aware of that, Mrs. Trickett," my embarrassment was replaced by curiosity.

  "You need to talk to them asap," she said, firmly. "Then when this all blows over, come back and we'll talk about the old times. Bring your mother."

  Bring my mother. Last week that comment might have received a "Not on Zeus' immortal life!" but things were different now. I was different now. I'd learned almost as much about Destiny as Jack had.

  "I'd like that, Mrs. Trickett." She'd leaned forward, waving me down for a hug. Awkwardly, I bent over and pressed my cheek to her lips, accepting the kiss and a motherly pat on my elbow, which was as far as she could reach. "Thanks for the lead," I said. I let myself out and jogged out to my truck, dialing my sub as I cranked the engine. By now you know how much trouble I'd be in if I left the route holding all the mail. But if Barbara couldn't meet me en route, it couldn't be helped. I was going to make a detour to the Faerie Inn.

  Chapter 12

  I'm… not sure I'm capable of asking that question

  * * *

  As luck would have it—Barbara’s, not mine, because I hadn't been terribly lucky lately—she turned the corner as I drove away from the Tricketts'. I apologized to Barbara for just tossing all the mail into her truck and racing off, but it was imperative that I check out the faerie's lead.

  She'd called me a novice. Well, she was right, but I was quickly getting up to speed on all things Paramortal.

  I called Jack to find out what he'd been able to get out of Crain. "You might want to ask Will about a missing faerie. Can you handle that?"

  There was a pause on his end of the line. "I'm… not sure I'm capable of asking that question of a human in an investigation with a straight face but I guess if I have to, I can go to the men's restroom and practice in the mirror," he answered sarcastically. "I'm turning into a character in a fantasy, Lord Sheriff of the 'Rings'." He changed the subject. "Are you still on the mail route?"

  "No. My last customer gave me a tip. One of the Fae has gone missing recently. I'm headed over to the Faerie Inn. I'll talk to my friend, Bella, and see if there's anything to it and how it relates to River."

  I didn't volunteer any information about Petre and Arabella. That he would have to see for himself. Any other time I might have been entertained by his introduction into Bella's world at the Faerie Inn.

  Arabella's home is a grand antebellum-style two-story mansion. Elaborate gardens wind along the circle drive, and around both sides of the house to a large pond shaded by hundred and fifty-year-old live oaks. Wall to wall French doors line the front of the house.

  Driving through the black gate between the wide peach colored columns on either side of the circle drive, most people are struck speechless by the sight of the grand double staircase shaped like the graceful outward-bending necks of two swans. The balustrade is white, the steps a shiny black as the curving necks wind toward the second floor.

  Dead center between the stairs spanning both floors is one giant set of forty-foot doors, making this mansion a little less antebellum and a bit more Arabellam. It's designed to accommodate all shapes and sizes of faeries, but especially Petre.

  The nearest B&B to this Inn is the one at Campbell Green but it's actually meant for tourists. This inn is always reported as over booked, but the place is so awe-inspiring that occasionally tourists drive up and beg to be placed on the Inn's long (non-existent) waiting list. If they actually made it inside they wouldn't get to see the same place as I, due to some creative glamour.

  My feet hit the front walkway and the tall golden doors slid open without a sound, my friend Arabella gliding out, as graceful and elegant as her home. If she hadn't been a faerie queen, she would have made a great fashion model.

  "Tempest, how lovely to see you. I missed our morning tea this week." She brushed a kiss against my cheek.

  "I did too, Bella." I figured what she missed most was the delicious fare she enjoyed from her breakfast hunts in my backyard.

  * * *

  She studied my face, finding something there to make her squeeze me in a hug. "You're just in time to share a meal. Actually, we were getting the hog and trimmings ready for supper but since you're here, we'll
just serve it for lunch. Come in."

  I didn't bother to argue but followed her inside. I loved this place. Upon entering, one left the earthly plane of Destiny and entered the abundant botanical world of the Fae. Even the interior was like an outdoor entertainment area with a trickling spring dumping into a pool of blue surrounded by lush flora. Tiny creatures lounged on flat rocks and lily pads and frolicked in the water.

  In the kitchen, an ancient looking stone hearth with open black iron doors provided a view straight through to the luxuriant forest out back.

  "It's been too long, Tempest," a voice echoed as if it came from the deepest well. I turned. Petre, Arabella's mate and the Fae king, unfolded his long, sylph-like body from his seat near the little brook and leaned against the stone wall. His slender green hand patted me gently on the shoulder. I came up to about thigh-high on Petre.

  "Hello, Your Highness." I tipped my head forward.

  "Now, now, none of that."

  Arabella said, "Relax for a bit while I put the pig in the oven." Bending over, the beautiful but frail-looking faerie lifted a wide iron roaster with a stuffed boar hog in it and turned toward the massive black hearth.

  Petre said, "Darling, I'll get that for you." He bent to pluck the two iron doors off the front of the oven so Bella could place the big boar onto the floor of the wide oven.

  Just before he replaced the heavy doors I got a glimpse of some of the faeries in the backyard. Returning to the lounging room, he collapsed to the floor in a lotus position and held out his hand to Bella, who stepped onto one knee and climbed into position on his shoulder, one leg crossed elegantly over the other.

  "Tell us why you've come. Does it have something to do with River?" asked Petre.

  I shrugged, grateful for their consideration and attentiveness. "I can't believe I haven't been out here to talk to you since all of this began. You know so much and always have your antennae up. It seems like all I hear is 'why didn't I know any of this was happening' or 'if I'd only been studying the path I'd have been'…" My complaining petered out.

  Bella sighed and leaned back against Petre's wide torso while he stroked her pale skin. "It's so easy for others to blame or use hindsight to criticize once something's happened, but that's not our way, Tempest. You traveled the path you were mean to travel. No matter where you are, or what's happened to concern or delight, it is the path. Don't take on others' recriminations. They will just get in the way of your progress today."

  I sighed. "You sound like Aurora. She just gave me that identical speech," and it was sounding less like it came off a tarot card each time I heard it. "She said I needed to learn to live my truth."

  Bella smiled and tipped her head in agreement. "Which is why so many of us turn to Aurora for counsel." That made my brows wing up. The heads of the Fae realm turning to Aurora for advice? I'd have to remember to ask her about that.

  "I just met a lady on my route, a Mrs. Trickett, and she said one of your guests had gone missing. Is that true?"

  Petre nodded. "Partially true, yes. Sariel, a fae from Fierce Winds Isle, was due here last week but never arrived. We haven't determined if there was… what's the term…"

  "Foul play?" I offered.

  He tipped his head. "That has not been determined."

  Arabella rose and slid from Petre's lap. "Come outside, dinner is almost ready."

  Almost ready? She'd just put the pig in the oven. She led me out of the kitchen to where the yard became a field of flowers, dogwoods and cherry blossoms. Bella looped a basket over my arm and pointed at various herbs and blossoms. I followed her example dropping the ones I picked into my basket.

  Before long we were back at the house, and I realized I was looking into the house through the large oven once again. Bella tossed the herbs and blossoms into the oven and had me do the same. Then she called to Petre, "Honey, would you please get the pig out before it overcooks." She winked at me.

  The giant fae king appeared at Bella's side, easing the sizzling tray one handed onto the large table. I had watched the tray with the uncooked boar enter the hearth less than ten minutes before, but the pig Petre removed was redolent of spices, stuffed with fruit, the blossoms forming a flurry of glazed flower shaped imprints on the succulent brown skin. How did I forget, that for faeries like Petre and Bella, an oven wasn't really necessary, merely… ambience.

  "Stay for lunch?"

  I hadn't forgotten I'd come on a mission. "I thank you," I said formally, "but I need to know if you think this faerie's disappearance had anything to do with River's."

  Petre said, "That probably depends on what the investigator finds."

  "So, who's in charge of finding out?" I looked at Bella whose thoughts had strayed to the table preparations.

  "Finding out—oh, about the foul play?" Bella cocked her head and frowned at me, "Why, Dylan, of course."

  I threw up my hands. "Zeus' lacy drawers!" Once again, something I should have known. Or you'd think I would have figured it out. Maybe if everyone hadn't been so determined to keep so many secrets from me, I would have.

  I looked at Bella, my voice rising, "How many times have we sat by the bayou, visiting?" My voice rose and menori came alive inside me, like an irritated cat, whipping me with her tail. I could hear myself chastising my friends but couldn't seem to stop. "Was there ever a time you thought about telling me the 'way of things' or that Dutch was alive? That Dylan was doing undercover faerie investigations?"

  I felt the aura of the powerful presence first, like a big blip on my radar. The smaller faeries dove under bushes and went running for the forest. Then a voice boomed, reverberating off the stone wall of the house, thundering through the trees.

  "Tempest. Stop."

  Tempe

  She's come undone… a Tempestaerie fugue.

  * * *

  I recognized him… by the voice that had been likened to bellowing organs, crying out rain over the mountains to flood rivers, sending fire to create fear and move rock.

  Menori recognized the familial wind. She skyrocketed through my system, flushed blood through my arteries. Impulses of neurotransmissions crashed and exploded like missiles in a giant conductor making the tendrils of her bonds loosen and stretch, preparing to strike.

  If not for that… the man might have been a stranger. Tall, massively built, bronze from head to black leather biker boots—think Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson on mega steroids, and that's before he goes full-on freaky Djinn. This man had a heavy mane of burnished copper hair streaked with color. The father I remembered had been bald, but the last time I'd seen him, I'd been seven years old. And I'd been told he was dead.

  My chest was being clawed apart from the inside, pulsing to the beat of my anguished heart. Any second it would blow out like a deep sea oil well, leaving havoc in its wake.

  "Dutch." Menori's control made my voice calm.

  "Tempest."

  Wait, motorcycle boots, black leather… "You! The rider who followed me, who staked out my house, watched me come and go, but didn't have the parental consideration, or love, or decency to knock on my door and reintroduce yourself… say, 'oh, sorry, honey—you grieved for nothing, belittled your mother undeservedly and because of me, your little brother may d-die!' How about that, Father?" I choked.

  And couldn't stop it.

  He crossed his arms and gritted his teeth the second I unleashed the fury of my wrath at him.

  On the periphery of my vision, I saw a protective shield rise like a dome over the picnic table and faerie guests who stood against the transparent barrier, gaping and pointing at the out of control weather berzerker. I glared at them, my eyes lit with a hot inner sunlight. They scampered away diving under the table.

  "It's me you're angry with, daughter. Unleash your fury here!" He pounded his enormous chest and flexed hulking arms of bronze. As if those were the magic words, I came… unglued.

  Wind roared and slammed into him, but his body was like a mountain—immovable. Rain pounded in big fat
drops, and baseball sized hail fell on the backyard until he was standing in a foot of it, and still he stood, like a granite monolith. Shards of ice bounced off his impenetrable skin.

  I called lightning, big honking bolts of jagged blue that ripped across the sky and slammed into the ground at his feet. And closer. He deflected those, and smiled.

  I raged. What could bring down a mountain—a flood, but he was not made of dirt. Frustrated I gathered menori around me and jacking up the speed of my spin, directed all of the rocks around the pond into menori's new power…

  Someone shouted. "No. Tempest."

  Before the small boulders went ten feet, he rose making use of the pond to become a giant waterspout. I dropped the rocks, gathered the forces of air and heat and aimed a straight-line wind at the center of the whirlwind. I'd break through that vortex and he'd have to regroup—

  "Tempe, my God, stop."

  My Tempestaerie rejected the human voice off hand. She was angry. Danger.

  I turned, and she aimed at…him. Jack.

  Then I was knocked to the ground by one of my own missiles, or my father directed it at me to make me snap out of the Tempestaerie fugue. It worked.

  When I opened my eyes, Jack was bending over me. Over his shoulder, I saw the spout collapse, slide down over itself and blink out. Then Dutch was there as well. Jack turned his head and looked at Dutch, as if he saw men turn into waterspouts and women throwing boulders and—I looked past them to Petre—and twenty-foot tall green men standing by laughing at the whole scene, everyday.

  He said, "Dutch Pomeroy, I presume." It was so bizarre I almost laughed.