Destiny: A Fantasy Collection

by Rachelle Mills

  “It’s called being a best friend. You’re the weirdo for keeping mortal hours, not me.”

  He scrubbed his hand down the side of his face. “Can you help me with some memory alterations? I have the feeling I’m going to need to perform some tonight.”

  “You couldn’t call me tonight to ask about this?” Grant asked drolly.

  He sighed. “I accidentally scared the hell out of a mortal woman I wanted to hire to work with me.” Rising from his chair, he started pacing the room in random circles.

  A disbelieving laugh. “Come again?”

  Henry explained the situation as concisely as possible and repeated his request for help.

  “I’m not helping you with shit,” Grant said, sounding suspiciously delighted.

  “Why is that, exactly?” Henry leaned against the side of his desk and narrowed his eyes.

  “You’ve been complaining for weeks about the supernats in your office—”

  “Mostly thanks to you, I might add.” If Grant hadn’t gone around bragging to everyone about Henry’s skills, he had a feeling he would have a lot fewer clients.

  “Yeah, yeah. The point is that you need this woman’s help. You’re better off trying to get her to come around. Lay on some charm, or even better, some dominance.”

  Henry stopped in his tracks. “Are you crazy? She gave me the scared, horrified look. You know the one.” Damn, these were exactly the kinds of shenanigans he’d been trying to avoid.

  “Who the hell else is going to help you?”

  “I’m sure I can find someone else. I’ll introduce them to the Underworld properly.”

  “You picked her for a reason. You’ve been dragging your heels on hiring help for ages. You need to be more aggressive, dude. Otherwise she’s gone.”

  Henry opened his mouth to snap back a retort but reined himself in. Sometimes asking an honest question could get him further than reacting in agitation. “How would I go about doing that, exactly?”

  His friend hemmed and hawed. “I don’t know. Say something like…” Grant’s voice took on a husky, no-bullshit tone as he said, “‘No way around it, sweetheart: You work for me now. Like it or not, you’ll be back in my office at 9 a.m. tomorrow.’”

  Pinching the bridge of his nose, Henry felt the dregs of his patience die. For a long moment, he pretended to be intrigued and went as far as making enthusiastic thinking noises before saying, “Grant, please don’t talk to women anymore.”

  ***

  “I wanted a ballsier life, but this is uncalled for,” Emma muttered to herself as she walked into the downtown branch of the Pima County Public Library.

  It was time to do what she always did whenever anything confused or scared her: research. An hour later, she walked through the wide glass doors with a hefty stack of books under each arm. She tossed them gracelessly into the back of Daphne’s car and drove back to her sister’s house. Once there, she sat in the driveway for a moment, trying to understand what the hell was happening to her life. With a bemused smile, she realized she was ending the day the way she’d started it—in a quiet, hot car trying to calm her nerves.

  After finding the momentum to get inside the house, she leaned heavily against the front door. Her fingers itched to do the second thing she always did whenever anything confused or scared her: call her best friend. What would she even say, though? Camille was on the other side of the world on a Rhodes Scholarship doing pharmacology research. Even though her friend didn’t have a die-hard “it’s science or nothing” attitude, it’s not like Emma could say, “Hey lady! Vampires are real!” Camille would think she was nuts, or if by some miracle she didn’t, Emma wasn’t sure she was even ready to talk about it. No. Instead, a fact-finding mission was in order.

  Emma pushed away from the door and kicked off Daphne’s flip-flops. She grimaced at her dress. Feeling suffocated, she went upstairs and promptly stole a change of clothes from Daphne’s dresser. Then she holed herself up in a guest room and surrounded herself with library books on everything paranormal, a box of kosher salt, a few candles, and some leftover lasagna she’d found in Daphne’s fridge.

  As the sun was setting a while later, she heard the stirrings of life downstairs. Eventually, there was a knock at the bedroom door. Emma braced herself and called out, “What?”

  Daphne eased the door open and stepped inside. Emma was sitting on the floor inside a ring of Morton’s kosher salt with four lit candles, one at each of the cardinal points. A massive stack of books towered beside her. The plate of lasagna was empty.

  “Emma, are you okay?”

  She stiffened. “You can’t hurt me. Stay away from the circle of salt!”

  Daphne grumbled and left the room. She returned a few minutes later with a vacuum cleaner. She plugged it in and began vacuuming up the salt from the rug. Emma gasped.

  Her sister paused in her vacuum cleaning to give Emma a sour look. “That only works if I’m trying to hurt you, which is unlikely, seeing as how I fixed your feet and heal defenseless animals for a living. I was hiding myself from you, not trying to plot your demise.”

  Logically, Emma knew her sister wouldn’t hurt her, but she didn’t like seeing her safety blanket sucked away. She hugged her knees to her chest. “For being the older sister, you don’t have much sense. You let me walk into that office, totally clueless about what was really going on. What if I was supposed to be Henry’s lunch?”

  Daphne’s face softened. “Most vampires don’t kill people.” When Emma gave her a skeptical look, she added, “Come on, it’s Tucson. Supernats would rather drink and have fun than go on a murder spree. That’s one way to get kicked out of town real fast.”

  Emma didn’t know what to do anymore; she was supposed to be the more conventional and reasonable sister—always had been—but there was nothing conventional or reasonable about what was happening. She let Daphne finish vacuuming up the salt. When she was done, Daphne grabbed the box of salt, shook it, and frowned.

  “You used all of it? You owe me a new box.”

  Emma shrugged and stared at the carpet. Daphne sat down on the floor next to her and blew out the candles. Gray smoke curled into the air. It smelled like birthdays. Growing up, their grandmother used to drive from Tucson to Phoenix on their birthdays to bake them cakes. She’d somehow always found the energy, even as she’d gotten older. Joy and calmness had defined her.

  “Gram loved mystical New Age stuff like this. She would’ve squealed at the thought of you being a fairy.”

  They sat in silence until Daphne took a deep breath and finally said, “She did know.”

  Emma tried not to let the hurt enmeshed in that confession show. She waited for Daphne to go on.

  “Do you remember when I had to go to the hospital about a year ago? I said I had really bad food poisoning.”

  “Sure.” Gram had nursed her back to health after getting sick from some nasty fish tacos. A few months later, she was gone.

  “Well, it wasn’t. It was ovarian cancer. It had spread to my lungs.”

  The words stole Emma’s breath. She grabbed her sister’s hand and squeezed.

  “…Why didn’t you say anything?”

  “She told me not to and that it wasn’t a big deal. Gram was a healer fairy too,” Daphne said in a rush.

  Emma waited for the shock and betrayal to invade her, but instead it felt like puzzle pieces snapping into place. “She was our fairy grandmother, she used to say. I always thought she didn’t know the term was ‘fairy godmother.’” She groaned.

  Daphne laughed. “Me too.”

  “Oh God, and the book of monsters.” She felt so obtuse at the thought of the inscription—The monsters I know are friendlier! If she had been a fairy, of course she knew monsters.

  “She loved giving hints no one picked up on.”

  Emma stilled. “Was she the one who turned you into a fairy?”

  To her surprise, tears suddenly fell from Daphne’s face. More secrets. She couldn’t remember the la
st time she’d seen her sister cry. While sensitive to the needs of animals, she was forever cultivating her image of being a devil-may-care badass. Emma put a hand on her back and rubbed in circles like their mom used to do when something upset them as kids. Apparently in need of a hug, Daphne leaned over and tugged Emma’s arms until she was holding her older sister. It felt nice to comfort her. Squeezing her tightly, Emma leaned her head against Daphne’s.

  Even as the grief of the situation stunned her, questions swirled in her brain: Why hadn’t Daphne been able to save their grandmother from her stroke? How exactly had she been turned? Was she ever going to tell their parents? Were fairies immortal like vampires? Could a person ever get over the trauma of nearly dying even if they became immortal?

  There was so much she didn’t know, but she didn’t know where to begin. Daphne was so upset; Emma didn’t want to push her more. She also didn’t know if she was ready to hear more. The world as she knew it had been upended. So they simply sat as Emma continued to hug her sister while she cried.

  The doorbell rang and crushed the silence.

  As if waking from a dream, Daphne started. Emma let go, watching Daphne swipe at her wet face with the palms of her hands. Before Emma could say anything, her sister jumped up.

  “I better get that.” She avoided eye contact.

  Emma frowned but let her go. Daphne was apparently as eager to pause the angst-ridden revelations as she was. They both needed time to process. Shaking off the fog of the moment, she trailed after her sister. By the time Emma got downstairs, Daphne had pulled the door open.

  “Oh,” fell out of her sister’s mouth.

  Henry was on their front step with a hopeful, placating smile on his face. He wore a suit with no tie, and his white shirt was blissfully blood-free. His skin was a slight rosy pink but otherwise completely healed. The last image she had of him with charred skin flared to life in her head and made her flinch.

  “Don’t invite him inside,” Emma blurted.

  ***

  Well, that’s encouraging, Henry thought darkly. He held up Emma’s bag as a peace offering, glancing at the fairy standing in front of Emma with a meek smile. Had to be her sister.

  “Well, uh, you must be Daphne.” He placed a hand on his chest. “I’m Henry.” He cleared his throat and met Emma’s gaze. “Amidst the…commotion…you left your things behind. I hope you don’t mind that I drove your car over.” He pointed back at her dark sedan.

  Emma nodded. “Thank you.”

  Daphne accepted the bag on Emma’s behalf and set it inside. She heeded Emma’s request, so Henry continued to stand outside awkwardly. Both women looked haggard and drained. He could only imagine the rough day they’d had. Daphne rubbed one of her red-rimmed eyes.

  Focusing his attention on Emma, he asked, “Can I talk to you for a minute?”

  “I’ll give you two some space,” Daphne said and gave him an apologetic smile before disappearing into another room.

  Emma approached the threshold, wearing yoga pants and a vintage U of A t-shirt with the school’s official motto: “Bear Down.” The sag of her shoulders and wariness in her eyes gave him the sudden urge to take her hand and offer to take her to a movie to forget the day. Maybe he would buy her Junior Mints. He clamped his jaw shut and pressed his hand to the side of his leg to dismiss the notion. Charming and whimsical as the idea may be, he had a feeling it would result in a door shut in his face.

  “I’m sorry about how everything happened. I honestly had no idea you were there, and things got out of hand so quickly.”

  She sighed. “It’s fine. My mind has kind of shut down, but I’m glad I know.”

  “You and your sister are lucky to have each other.”

  He meant that. After seeing the look of terror on her face, part of him had expected her to go back to Phoenix, never to be heard from again.

  Henry considered a good transition to ask what he really wanted to ask. There wasn’t one, but he had to at least try. After his conversation with Grant as well as Roy’s and Wendell’s reactions to Emma, he’d changed his mind every half hour that afternoon. Did he really want a rookie working for him? But she could go to court, visit clients in jail, and attend pretrial conferences with deputy county attorneys way more easily than he could. However, if she didn’t know anything about the Underworld, would she inadvertently expose them all?

  But, when it came down to it, he still wanted to get rid of these supernat cases, and she was the only person he knew who could do it. If she was up for returning to the firm, he would have to trust her. The question was how to get her to come back.

  He chose to go with being reasonable. “If you’re willing, I still want you to work with me.”

  Her mouth fell open, but she recovered quickly. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

  “I haven’t found any supernat lawyers in Tucson. You could really make a difference.”

  Emma frowned at him. “Are things that bad?”

  “Kind of.”

  “Does this have anything to do with that white-haired guy complaining about weird news stories?”

  Henry leaned away from her and shot her a long look. “Guess you were eavesdropping for a while there.”

  Her eyes sparked, unapologetic. “Well, does it?”

  “It does. That’s my landlord, Roy Wheeler. He’s one of the most powerful supernats in Tucson. But he stays out of the limelight and prefers to focus on restoring historic adobe buildings downtown,” he explained, gesturing at the rows of houses lining Daphne’s street. “Like me, he wants to keep his life simple, so he’s not pleased about the attention these criminal cases are drawing. I don’t blame him, but that’s why I need the help.”

  “I don’t know how much help I could actually be.” She laughed, her tone hollow.

  He held up a hand, disappointed she would write herself off so quickly. “You would be an incredible asset to my practice. You’ve got a great combination of gumption and compassion. That’s why I wanted to hire you. I’ll figure it out if you don’t come back, but there are certain things you can do much better.” He tapped the newly healed skin on his face for emphasis. “Take your time to think about it.”

  She eyed him warily and didn’t say anything. He backed down the front steps to the sidewalk. Better to keep it short and sweet. No use in needling her or commanding her to come back. It would either work out or it wouldn’t.

  “How much are you paying?” she called.

  That gave him pause. His pulse quickened. Maybe her coming back wasn’t as much of a long shot as he’d thought. “Pardon?”

  “I’m not saying yes, but how much are you paying?”

  “Not even close to what you were making at Keith and Heller,” he admitted. “But more than what you would make at a public defender’s office. And benefits.”

  “Oh?” She placed one hand on her hip, her gaze focused on the sidewalk. “Benefits?”

  “You really think Rick would keep working for me if I didn’t get him dental?” He laughed. “I try to do right by my people.”

  “How right?” Emma went down to the next step, closer to him, and Henry’s hope blossomed a little more.

  He plucked his fountain pen and a crumpled pink “While You Were Out” note from his suit jacket. He scrawled a figure on the back of the scrap of paper and handed it to her. Perfectly reasonable for her experience and skill level. To his surprise, she motioned for his pen and added another ten grand to the paper.

  He gave her a long look.

  A winning smile graced her lips. “I hate to break it to you, but even if you write numbers on a piece of pretty pink paper, I would require a getting-the-crap-scared-out-of-me fee.”

  He let out a short, incredulous laugh and shook his head. He dared to feel the barest hint of optimism. “Does that mean you’re saying yes?”

  Emma sobered, dimming his hopes slightly. “I need to think about it.”

  He slid one hand into the pockets of his slacks. “
Understood. Let me know what you decide. I’m sorry the day was so rough on you.”

  Henry didn’t wait for her to respond. He waved and headed home.

  ***

  Emma watched Henry walk down the empty street until he disappeared into the dark.

  “Daphne!” she called as soon as she shut the door.

  Her sister ran out of the kitchen. Her gaze darted around the room, looking for danger.

  “Everything okay? What happened?”

  Emma sighed and walked into the living room, beckoning Daphne to follow. They fell onto the couch and stared at one another.

  “Well?” Daphne prompted.

  “He apologized for the scare but still wants me to work for him if I’m up for it,” she said simply.

  Daphne put a hand on her shoulder. “Emma, no. You don’t have to go back.”

  She fiddled with the edges of a throw pillow. “I don’t know what I’ll do yet, but I can’t be unemployed forever.”

  “You won’t be.”

  “Yeah? Then what am I supposed to do with myself?”

  Daphne squared her shoulders and her eyes lost all their usual humor. “It’s my fault this job turned into a train wreck. Let me float you for a few months until you get something that’s a good fit. Maybe you can sublet your apartment and crash with me.”

  A rueful smile broke across Emma’s face at her sister’s kindness. “I can’t let you do that, Daph.”

  “Hear me out. Gram deeded me the house, so there’s no mortgage to worry about. I already paid property taxes this year. I can handle the expenses comfortably, at least in the short term.”

  “I don’t want to mooch,” Emma objected.

  Daphne raised a finger to silence her. “It’s my fault you’re out of a job. I didn’t explain that supernats existed or prepare you in any real way. I owe you. You’ve always had your shit together. I’m the screw-up. Let me take care of you for a minute.”

  Emma considered the offer. It would only be for a few months, at the most. She could cast her net wider than Tucson so she could get a decent job sooner rather than later. On the other hand, there was already a job waiting for her.