by C. T. Phipps
I paused and pulled out my cellphone to look at it. “Just so we’re clear. There’s a European and Native American fairy kingdom in Shadow Pine Park preserved by the Dryad. However, her price for keeping it so is a bunch of dudes screwing her?”
“Sex magic is one of the most basic of all nature worship,” my mother said, discussing it as if it was perfectly normal. Look at the May Day celebration. You would have learned all about this if you’d continued your training.”
I pinched the bridge of my nose. “Please just tell me Dad never helped out in this.”
“No, don’t be ridiculous. The only sexual rituals your father helped in were mine. However, due to bloodline cultivating, I did allow him to sire other heirs with other Cervid Clan women. You have quite a few half-siblings in the other shapechanger communities. I demanded a very high price for—”
“Nope,” I interrupted. “Nope, nope, nope. Not listening. La-la-la.”
Alex looked away, pretending not to be interested.
“I’ve told you this before,” Judy said.
“I’ve forgotten whatever you’ve told me,” I said, whistling. “Deleting file. Bee-boop.”
“You should meet them sometime,” Judy muttered.
I paused, wanting to know the next answer. “Okay, Mom, this has the potential to go very dark, but did you know there were a bunch of newborns left to die by exposure?”
Judy was silent. “Yes, unfortunately I did. After the massacre of the druids by US cavalry and their wizards, the fairies sealed up the region. Travelers still managed to visit the Goddess of the Forest, but we were bound to never step foot in it. The leader of the US wizards, Balthazar Jones, crazed the power of the goddess for himself.”
“I’ve been to Shadow Pines Park, though,” I said, wondering how this all went together.
“Yes, but not to the fairy kingdom,” Judy said, her voice low. “The Grove is locked away except for only a few individuals. I spent many years trying to get inside it to no avail, though I did find where the children were left to die and made it so they would be adopted by a good man who knew the truth of the area.”
“Andy Taylor?” I asked.
“Yes,” Judy said. “He’s a park ranger.”
I paused, letting that sink in. “So on a scale of one to a hundred, if say a bunch of greedy developers were to bulldoze Shadow Pine Park and the Grove, then what would happen?”
“Probably not the end of the world, probably tens of thousands of deaths,” Judy said, sounding worried. “Certainly it would kill all the spirits living inside there and be an incredible blasphemy. Is that what’s happening?”
“Nope, not at all,” I said, nodding. “Just checking about incredibly unlikely possibilities. Is Dad there?”
So Robyn’s dad was probably the guy behind all of this horrible stuff. Dammit.
“No, your father is out grocery shopping,” Judy said. “It’s hard to keep mushrooms in stock in this part of Alaska. Do you want me to have him call you?”
Alaska? Ouch. Still, good for deer I supposed, assuming it wasn’t too cold. We were white-tailed deer rather than reindeer after all. Man, I wished Emma was here for her cavalcade of biology facts.
“No, I’ll call back,” I said, biting my lip. “I’m on a date.”
“Oh, well, say hello.”
“Will do,” I said, sighing. “Talk to you later.”
“Goodbye.”
With that, she hung up.
“Thank you, Alex,” I said, closing my eyes and clearing my mind. “You have no idea how much that meant to me.”
“I have an idea,” Alex said, looking down at the wheel. “Ready for lunch?”
I nodded before stopping. “Actually, you want to get lunch to go and find a non-crappy hotel to have sex?”
Chapter Eighteen
Sex with Alex was better than what I’d hoped for. My experience wasn’t exactly stellar, but it was with some I cared for deeply, who knew what he was doing, and had the benefit of magic to make sure he could keep up with a woman who had superhuman stamina. The first time was quick, the second time long, and we also took a shower together that I had to concentrate on not becoming a third time.
And failed.
“Wow, Emma is going to be ticked off at me ditching for the afternoon,” I muttered, checking my phone. “Especially in the middle of a murder investigation.”
The two of us had gone to a smaller, presentable Best Western rather than any of the locally owned hotels. The room was adequately cleaned and while I could smell the previous customers who’d smoked despite the “NO SMOKING” sign along with other smells, I spent a large portion of my time running around in the woods, so that didn’t really bother me. I was sitting on the edge of the room’s king-sized bed and putting on my bra. Alex was still shirtless and I was admiring the view as he pulled out his button-down shirt.
I admitted to being one of those girls who liked scars. Alex’s back had numerous signs of being shot, attacked with some kind of whip, and claw marks that he’d managed to heal over with his magic but not completely. It was like a map I enjoyed exploring and I wished I could ask Alex about them.
“Well, I have no regrets,” Alex said, not reacting to the way I was looking. “Do you?”
“Not in the slightest,” I said, smiling. “The best things come to those who wait but we’ve waited way too long.”
Alex chuckled. “Yes, well, there is that.”
“Something wrong?” I asked.
“I was just thinking of Laura,” Alex said.
“Wow, so not what you want to say to a girl after marathon sex,” I said.
“No,” Alex said, pausing. “I was thinking about how the whole thing was toxic and I wish I’d never gotten involved with her.”
“Better,” I said, still hurt.
Alex finished buttoning down his shirt and took a deep breath. “The FBI and the wizards there are something of a clique.”
“What with being the Men in Black and all,” I said, pulling on my shirt.
“The Men in Black operate out of Area 51,” Alex said, as if it was common knowledge. “They work for the military and only have FBI advisors. The FBI answers to the Star Chamber and the Hoover Society.”
“Pretend I think any of those don’t sound like villains in a tabletop roleplaying game.”
“The Hoover Society is a collection of mages assembled by J. Edgar Hoover to fight supernatural crime. The Star Chamber is basically the Illuminati, wizards who use magic to get exceptionally rich, but much less powerful.”
“Please tell me the Illuminati aren’t real.”
“As far as I know,” Alex said, turning around and tying his tie. “The idea of an all-powerful secret society is ridiculous because the first thing powerful people do when they get together is start fighting for who gets to be on top. That doesn’t keep people from trying, though.”
“So which do you work for?” I asked, now worrying I’d inadvertently stepped into Fox Mulder’s mind.
Conspiracy theories were kind of an irritation to me because we lived in a world where the government was doing unlimited surveillance, puppet regimes, corporate human testing, had an army of drone murder-bots, and had secret prisons where they stuck anyone who irritated them. All of this had been before the Reveal as well. However, the vast majority of conspiracy theorists I met were complete cranks who actually made it easier for the government to get away with things because they were convinced everything was a plot by who knows what. Finding out there were actual magical conspiracies, just small scale, made my head hurt.
“I’m an independent contractor,” Alex said, frowning. “Both my parents were members of the Hoover Society, which tells you what kind of people they are. The Star Chamber is split between those who want to wipe out supernaturals like Dr. Jones and those who want to integrate them into society. I’m staying the hell out of their way until they make a decision. There’s other cabals and secret magical organizations across the globe but no
ne of them interest me. I self-study when I want to improve my craft or bargain with spirits.”
“How’s that working out for you?”
“Columbia protected me from a circle of seven who tried to cast me into Hell. I understand the Earth swallowed them up.”
“The city of Columbia?”
“The personification of America.”
I rubbed the bridge of my nose. “I actually would prefer to hear about your married ex-girlfriend more than continue this conversation.”
“There’s a picture of her in the trash folder of my cellphone. Laura was a fascinating woman. She was intelligent, beautiful, hard like a diamond, and possessed of a strong sense of self. She was also utterly ruthless and willing to do whatever it required to bring about her ideals of justice. Laura was the one who recruited me into the FBI along with several other mage hunters.”
“I was actually kidding about wanting to hear about her.”
“Oh.” Alex winced. “I sometimes have difficulty telling when people are being literal or not.”
“Yeah, yeah,” I said, reaching out for his cellphone. “I’ve heard that before. Gimme.”
“Really?”
“Now I have to see her,” I said, knowing it was a bad idea. Laura was dead, after all, and Alex had broken up with her before she’d died. It was, in all honesty, a relationship that was done and buried.
Alex handed his cellphone over. “Okay, if you say so.”
I checked the cell phone trash and, sure enough, saw a dozen photos of a beautiful Asian American woman in a gym workout tank top and sweats. She was a lot more endowed than I expected and more traditionally beautiful than my type of frame. I couldn’t help but compare myself to her.
“Wow, she’s gorgeous,” I said, frowning. “Unnaturally so. Is she a werewolf? Some sort of unnaturally curvy athletic girl I can blame the looks of on fairy glamour?”
Alex rolled his eyes. “I think I would have noticed if she was a werewolf.”
“Might explain some of the scratches on your back.”
“Those came from child abuse. My father used to turn me and my sister into cats then force us to fight.”
I paused, letting that sink in. “Don’t take this the wrong way, but that is almost too insane to be horrifying.”
“Kind of hard not to,” Alex said, grabbing the phone back from me.
“And you broke up because she was married?” I said, adding a bit of accusation to my tone.
“Among other things,” Alex said, frowning. “She was also prone to hiding things from me as well as her husband. Honesty became a stranger and I found that was a quality I wasn’t willing to sacrifice.”
“So you hate people hiding things from you?” I asked.
“Who doesn’t?” Alex asked, picking up on my guilt.
I paused, looking at the ground. “So, uh, now is probably an exceptionally bad time to be utterly truthful.”
Alex finished putting on his jacket and looked toward me. “I sense you’re going to do it, though.”
I felt guilty but wanted to continue our relationship on the right foot. Maybe it was the high of being together for the first time or the fact I didn’t want him to reveal something to me without returning the favor. Even so, I couldn’t help but believe this was a potential disaster in the making. “I wasn’t exactly not-dating before you.”
“That’s hardly something to upset me.”
I didn’t meet his gaze. “This will upset you.”
I sighed.
“Please don’t tell me it was Lucien.”
I spun my head toward him.
“God damn that bastard,” Alex muttered under his breath.
“It’s not really a big deal,” I said, trying to underplay it. “I mean, it was my choice.”
I closed my eyes.
“Lucien did this to spite me.”
“Excuse me?” I said, offended for multiple reasons.
Alex muttered something under his breath. “He knew, Jane. He knew I was interested and he did it anyway.”
“Maybe he was just interested himself. Did you think of that?” I asked, wondering why he thought my previous kinda-sorta-but-not-really was only seeing me as some sort of complicated revenge plot.
“Yes,” Alex said, pausing. “I suppose you’re right. You’re a fascinating wonderful woman.”
“Thanks,” I said, mollified.
“Did it have to be my brother?” Alex asked.
Ouch. “Uh, well, I didn’t plan it, but—”
I couldn’t help but remember Emma’s words about telling Alex before sleeping with him. In retrospect, not only should I have followed that recourse but I should have given him a few days to tell him about Lucien instead of right after. Goddess, I was an idiot.
Alex went to the door. “If you’ll excuse me, I need some air.”
I closed my eyes, feeling my stomach lurch. “Please, say something funny. Tell me how weird it is Vulcans are the most religious Star Trek race despite being devoted to logic or why you think Obi Wan was tricking Luke into redeeming Anakin.”
Alex paused at the door. “Honestly, Jane, I’m just not in the mood to talk about pop culture.”
He then walked out and shut it behind him.
“Well, frankly, Scarlett, I don’t give a damn either!” I said, snapping. “Dammit, I am a stupid, stupid deer.”
“Honestly, this doesn’t rank that high up there,” a voice spoke beside me.
I turned around to see a large White Stag standing there in the middle of the room. It was taller than me when I stood up with an enormous rack of antlers that stemmed from its luminescent white-furred head. Its eyes glowed while its voice seemed to have a reverb, not entirely unlike Raguel’s, but gentler.
“Ah!” I shouted, falling off the edge of the bed.
“That’s not very dignified behavior for a shaman,” the White Stag said.
“How the hell!” I shouted.
“I’m a spirit; I can appear anywhere I want,” the White Stag said. “The problem is getting people to pay attention.”
I climbed onto the bed. “I haven’t seen you since you led me to the lodge in Darkwater Preserve.”
“Well, I didn’t need to help you until now,” the White Stag said. “Also, you’re kind of terrible at this shaman thing. No vision quests, attempting to use the bones to gain advice, meditation, or prayer. You do realize it’s a job meant to involve interceding between the spirits and humans, right?”
“Yes, I am the avatar. Korra is hot,” I muttered, shaking my head. “Listen, I am liaising. I’m going to go kill a baby-killing avatar of the goddess, I worship. It’s like an old adage if you meet the Buddha on the road you should kill him.”
“You have totally misunderstood that saying.”
I paused, climbing to my feet. “Yeah, I always thought it was a bit weird.”
“You also can’t kill the Goddess of the Forest.”
“If I do?” I asked, sighing. “Just in case, you know, she’s in the way of the Merlin Gun that wants to kill her.”
Hypothetically, Raguel said, sitting on the dresser.
“Raguel is bound to a gun for the fact he needs a human hand to tell him when not to kill people since our father said he was too judgmental and unforgiving.”
“Our father?” I said.
“Or mother,” the White Stag said. “Your preference.”
I shrugged. “Mother, please. You didn’t answer the question.”
“Remember the tornado I sent you a vision about?” The White Stag asked.
“You sent me?”
“Is there an echo in here?” The White Stag asked.
“No, just a big huge reindeer.”
“Don’t be insulting, White Tail. Admit it, you’ve been admiring my rack since I came in here.”
I snorted. “I guess you aren’t the Jesus Stag.”
“No, but we’re related. Mind you, we’re all children of the Great Spirit, so it’s not really all that big
of a deal.”
“Uh-huh,” I said, suspecting the stag was trolling me. “So if I kill the Dryad then the town will be hit by a tornado?”
“More like everything in the immediate hundred-mile area will die. She is the force keeping the land magical. Without it, Bright Falls will lose its mystical verve and unleash the thousands of creatures kept in its spirit world.”
I stared at him. “Like griffons?”
“Like griffons.”
I sighed. “So I have to break my promise to Robyn.”
“No, if you do that then you’ll be banned from the Spirit World. You need to go there in order to keep her from being kidnapped by Dr. Jones in his new body. Then he’ll gain divine power and screw up the world.”
I felt my face. “I’m feeling a damned if you do, damned if you don’t situation here.”
“Pretty much, yeah.”
I covered my face and sat down. “I don’t suppose you have any advice, all-wise Jesus Stag?”
“Please stop calling me that.”
Gabriel does not like it, Raguel said.
I opened a space between my two fingers. “Wait, what was that?”
Nothing.
“I sincerely doubt that!” I shouted at Raguel.
“You need to convince Robyn to let go of her desire for vengeance,” the White Stag said.
“Easier said than done,” I said, sighing. “I’m also not sure it’s not a legitimate grievance. You can’t tell me the Earthmother didn’t know she was leaving those kids out to die. She’s a frigging goddess.”
“Life and death are both her purview,” the White Stag said. “Though the Goddess of the Forest’s mind has become addled from centuries without much human contact, spirits who spend too much time in one form often become corrupted.”
“Yeah, so I’ve heard,” I said, pausing. “I’ll think of something. Thanks for telling me.”
“You’re welcome.”
I paused. “Uh, I don’t suppose you have any romantic advice for my Alex situation. You know, if you are supposedly all wise.”
