The Fairyland Murders

by J. A. Kazimer

Ignoring the niggling feeling in the back of my brain that something didn’t add up, I checked Isabella’s credit report. She’d made only one purchase in the last year. An eight-hundred-dollar purchase charged on the first of this month.

  For rent, I’d bet my life. I picked up my charred phone, dialed the credit card company, and waded through mechanical voice prompts until a squeaky, high-pitched, real-live human picked up.

  “Your business is important to us. How can I help you today?” she asked with an affected sincerity that didn’t mask the boredom in her tone.

  I cleared my throat. “Yes. Hello . . . I was looking at my bill and noticed a charge for eight hundred dollars. I’m not sure what it’s for. Can you look it up?” I paused, infusing my own voice with artificial honesty. “Please?”

  Without the tiniest bit of suspicion, which explained the growing rash of identity thefts around the city, she rattled off the name of a corporation.

  Never Never Inc.

  A quick Google and two phone calls to the corporate Never Never headquarters later, I had an address for a single-room apartment in one of the worst sections of Fairyland rented under the name I. Miller. Not really original, but fairies weren’t known for their creativity. Or wit. Or general hygiene.

  Except when it came to their teeth.

  Those winged guys loved to floss.

  Shaking my head, I jotted down the apartment address for I. Miller. It was as good a place to start my search as any. Hell, maybe I’d get lucky and find Her Toothiness inside and hung over after a week-long bender.

  Like most of my other clientele.

  I grabbed my jacket, locked my office (not that I had anything worth stealing), pulled on a pair of leather gloves—double layered not only for my pleasure but mostly so I didn’t accidently shock innocent strangers on the street—and jumped on the Fey Train for a quick trip downtown.

  I. Miller was in for some blue-haired company.

  When I arrived at the address for I. Miller, I double-checked the street number. The only building still standing in the rundown block was a flophouse above a fairy-dust shooting gallery. Graffiti from the local Big Bad Wolves gang filled the brick exterior, warning anyone in the immediate area of the dangers of huffing or puffing other gangs’ wares.

  This was no place for a half fairy, especially one as ugly, gangly, and dull as Isabella Davis supposedly was. Something was very wrong. What made a seemingly happy half human, half fairy go from uptown public relations to seedy decaying downtown in less than a year? What was she hiding from?

  Or more importantly, who was she hiding from?

  Not my problem, I reminded myself. The twins had hired me to find her. That was all. Once I did, the job was done. I’d move on to another case, if I ever got another one, and one day I’d find what I sought most. Sadly, from the moment I’d entered the flophouse, what I wanted more than anything was a good hot shower.

  Holding my breath, I walked up three flights of urine-stained stairs until I reached a flimsy door marked with a small brass plaque labeled 307. The very same room rented to the mysterious I. Miller. I knocked on the door. No answer. Not a great sign when trying to find the person living there.

  Taking a set of lock picks from my jacket pocket, I scanned the corridor. The buzz of a television down the hall tuned to a reality show where desperate people do desperate things like date any idiot with a pilot’s license for their fifteen minutes of fame filled the corridor.

  What was the kingdom coming to?

  I pressed the pick into the flimsy lock, and less than thirty seconds later, I was inside Isabella Davis’s room. A room surprisingly empty for a Tooth Fairy-to-be.

  The bed looked as if it was untouched. No makeup or toiletries lined the bathroom sink. Not even a toothbrush. The one and only tool, besides floss, a Tooth Fairy-in-waiting would never leave home without.

  I closed my eyes, then slowly opened them, hoping for a new perspective. The place still appeared unlived in with the exception of the cockroaches crawling along the floorboards.

  But the faint burn of fairy dust in my throat told me I was in the right place. Isabella Davis had been here. And recently, by the size of the contact high I was getting off the dust. So where was she now? And more importantly, had she left of her own accord?

  I sucked in a deep breath, enjoying the buzz as the fairy dust rushed through my system and went to work. Somewhere in the seemingly unlived-in room was a clue. I just had to find it, which was why I got paid the big bucks. No sticks or stones left unturned and all that shit.

  The sun began to set, lengthening the shadows circling the room. I caught a faint movement, but by the time I spun in a half circle, only growing darkness greeted me.

  Since I hadn’t brought a flashlight, I pulled off my gloves and rubbed my hands together, generating a flicker of blue sparks. The flashes cut the gloom enough to continue my search. Meticulously, I examined the room, pulling out every drawer and checking in every crevice.

  I found a small framed photograph of a smiling woman on the nightstand by the bed, her hair tucked under a baseball cap that hung low, covering the top half of her face. This had to be Isabella, or at least what I could make out of her.

  I pulled the picture from the frame, studying it closer. Isabella Davis was cute, in that all-American-girl, no-makeup way. Not my style, but some guys went for the girl-next-door type. Her looks aside, one thing was definitely missing from the photograph: a nice pair of wings. Pretty standard equipment for a fairy, especially the Tooth Fairy.

  What the hell was going on? Was the woman in the photo not Isabella Davis? Unsure of anything but my growing uneasiness with the twins’ “case,” I pocketed the picture and returned to my quest for clues.

  Frustration filled me as I finished my inspection without a single clue as to what had happened to Isabella Davis.

  I was a PI, damn it.

  A fairly good one at times.

  Really, how hard could it be to find the Tooth Fairy?

  Hell, any kid with a loose tooth had a better track record than me. Just as I was about to give up, a tissue in the trash drew my attention. A glob of still-wet nail polish lay smeared across the Kleenex. My heart beat faster at the sight. This told me two things; first, I needed to get laid, and soon, before chewed gum started to turn me on.

  And, more importantly, Isabella had left the flophouse under her own power. No one, at least up until a few hours ago, had had her under their control. Because let’s face it: when kidnapping a chick with wings, one didn’t wait for her to finish doing her nails. Were the twins wrong about the kidnapping?

  Taking a last deep, fairy dust–filled breath, I headed for the door. As I opened it, something tucked between the wall and bed caught my notice. It gleamed like a neon sign flashing the words: Dumbass, this is a clue.

  I picked up the clue, which turned out to be a napkin from Pixie’s, a local fairy dive bar a few blocks away. “Got you,” I said as more shadows filled the room.

  CHAPTER 4

  I arrived at Pixie’s twenty minutes after leaving Isabella’s apartment. By the time I reached the front door of the worn, tattered building, dusk had turned to night. I pulled my leather jacket higher, tossed my cigarette away, and opened the door. Like in a bad Western fairytale, the chaos inside the bar screeched to a halt, and every tiny, beady eye in the place flew my way.

  The scent of year-old moldy beer and stale cigarette smoke washed over me, reminding me of home. I took a steadying breath, glancing around the place, checking for exits or anything that could be used as a weapon if things went south. And they usually did when dealing with fairies.

  In the corner a fairy dust–addicted princess snorted lines of dust off the necks of two long-haired, tattooed fairies. Two tables from them sat a group of half-dressed nymphomaniac nymphs, each worse-looking than the former. Not that the gnomes chatting them up seemed to care.

  In the air of desperation, I fit right in. In many ways it felt like coming home. Not tha
t I knew what a real home was like. My brief stint with my one and only foster home when I was ten had lasted less than two weeks. Who knew macaroni and cheese was flammable?

  I crossed the room to the grim-faced bartender standing on a stool tending bar. Leaning on the bar, I gave him my best smile. He ignored me outright. “Excuse me, barkeep,” I said and waved a hand in his oddly egg-shaped face. Had he not been a fairy, he could’ve passed for Humpty’s shorter and smellier brother. “I’ll have a beer.”

  In response he spit on a towel and then wiped the beer mug in his hand clean before setting it on the bar in front of me. “That will be twenty bucks.”

  I glanced down at the spit-shined empty glass and then back at him. “Let’s try this again. I’m going to order a beer, in a bottle, you are going to flutter over to the cooler, pop one open, and then place it on the bar.”

  “Not gonna happen, blue boy. We don’t serve your kind here,” he said in a surprisingly high voice. Considering only my hair was electric blue in color, not the rest of me, his blue-boy comment felt a little harsh. Not to mention his breath, which was much too minty for my taste. But he wasn’t finished being rude quite yet. “I suggest you leave. Now,” he said with menace.

  I held up a leather-clad hand, tugging on each finger until my bare flesh-toned hand was free. “Fair enough. But first I need a little information.”

  He laughed. “You ain’t a cop.”

  “No, I’m not.” My calm reply gave him pause. He glanced from me to a couple of fairies behind me. Armed fairies, I assumed, a fairly safe bet in this neighborhood. “You tell me what I want to know and I’m gone.” I turned my head to address the other fairies. “No one needs to get hurt,” I said, rubbing my fingers together to generate an electrical pulse. Silver sparks shot from my fingers, raining down on the bar. Tiny scorch marks smoldered against the beer-stained wood.

  “What do you want to know?” he asked, rubbing his cherub chin.

  I blew on my fingers and then slowly reached into the pocket of my jacket. The tiny footsteps behind me moved closer. I could smell their fairy scent, a mixture of grease, body odor, and fairy dust. When I merely pulled out a photo of Isabella Davis, a collective sigh rose from the group. The bartender relaxed a bit, offering me a less than hateful frown. “Have you seen this woman?”

  “No,” he answered without looking at the picture.

  I pushed the photo closer to him, through an oozy pool of old beer. “Why don’t you take another look?”

  He rolled his beady eyes. “Never seen her. Like I said,” he leaned forward, his breath hot on my face, “we don’t serve humans here, even ones like her.”

  “She’s not human,” I said, watching him closely. This time his eyes flickered to the photograph, widening slightly. I smiled, knowing I had him. “When did you see her last?”

  He shoved the picture away. “You want some advice?”

  “Not especially.”

  “Too bad.” He moved closer until we were almost nose to nose. “Stay out of fairy politics and you just might live to see the next blue moon.”

  Before I could decide between punching him in his button nose or questioning him further, his fairy entourage attacked from behind. A very short, thin pool cue bounced off the back of my neck. While the blow hadn’t hurt, it didn’t endear the tiny varmints to me either. I spun to face the threat, frying the two closest fairies in the process. They dropped to the ground, small limbs jerking rhythmically. The other two still-standing fairies backed up a step, and then another.

  “Easy,” I warned as electricity arched from one hand to another as my adrenaline spiked. “We don’t need to do this.”

  The telltale sound of buckshot being loaded into a shotgun echoed from behind the bar. I willed my anger—and subsequently the electricity inside me—down.

  With a curse, I slowly turned back to the bartender and the shotgun two times his size in his puny, tattooed arms. The words FAIRY POWER covered his knuckles. Not the most badass tattoo, but I got the point. He didn’t serve my kind, whether it was lukewarm beer or information.

  “It’s time for you to leave,” he said, motioning to the door with the barrel of the gun.

  “As you wish.” I picked up Isabella’s sticky photograph. “Don’t be surprised if you get a bad Yelp review, though.” As parting words went those weren’t my best. Mind you, I was far more clever when not faced with getting shot in the face with hundreds of pellets.

  The barrel of the gun followed me out the door and into the street. I swore as I lit a cigarette, my hands shaking ever so slightly. I wasn’t afraid of dying, bright blue light and all that. But I hated the thought of death by fairy. The embarrassment of being taken out by some dwarf bumblebee hybrid was almost too much to bear.

  “Psst,” a tiny voice called from the darkness. “Hey you . . .” I searched the shadows, trying to pinpoint the speaker’s location. “Over here,” the voice came again.

  I snapped my fingers. Blue sparks flew from my fingers, illuminating the darkness. In the alleyway between the bar and a fairy dry cleaners stood an orange-winged fairy dressed in filthy clothes, his face pale and sweaty in the moonlight.

  “You looking for some info?” he said in a whisper.

  “What I really need is to find a woman.”

  His eyes widened. “I could . . . probably . . .”

  “Not like that.” I waved him off. “I’m looking for a specific woman.” I pulled out the photo, tapping it with my finger. “This woman.” A shot sparked off my finger, catching the edge of the picture on fire. I quickly blew it out.

  The fairy took a step back, wiping his nose with the back of his arm. He glanced at the photo and then at me. “What’s it worth to you?”

  God bless capitalism. Not to mention full-on fairy-dust addiction. If not for those two things, my job would be a hell of a lot harder.

  I jammed my cigarette between my lips, reached into my pocket, pulling out my nearly empty wallet, and counted out twenty dollars in one-dollar bills. He watched my every move, twitching with need. “I have twenty bucks,” I said. “All yours.” He reached out to snatch it, but I yanked it out of his grasp. “If what you tell me is true.”

  “I swear it, man.” He held up a dirt-stained hand. “I saw that chick two nights ago. Right there.” He pointed to a graffiti-covered pay phone on the street corner a half block away.

  I tilted my head, studying him. “What time was this?”

  “Eight or so.”

  “Was she alone?”

  He scratched his whiskery chin. “Not sure.”

  “Think harder.”

  I swore I could see smoke billowing from his head as he tried valiantly to remember beyond his fairy dust–induced haze. Hard to do when lost in the stuff. “Um,” he said after a full two minutes, “I think so. There was a guy . . .”

  “What guy?”

  “A little guy. Green wings.” He licked his cracked lips. “I don’t think they were together. But he looked real interested in her . . . in what she was doing.”

  Not good. Not good at all. Was this her kidnapper? Or worse, Jack the Tooth Ripper? The New Never City PD had long suspected the infamous killer was in fact a fairy. “Did you see where she went after she made her call?”

  He shook his head.

  “Did the guy with green wings follow her?”

  He lifted his trembling shoulders in a shrug. “Sorry, man. I don’t know.”

  “Thanks,” I said, holding out the money. He took it, careful to avoid hand-to-hand contact, and then skipped away, whistling happily.

  I had a bad feeling I’d just lost twenty bucks on bogus info. I tossed my cigarette to the ground, crushing it under my boot before I headed for the pay phone up the block.

  Sirens filled the night air as I reached the phone booth. The stench of urine and unwashed bodies tickled my nose. Why would Isabella Davis use a pay phone? Only one reason I could think of: She didn’t want her call traced back to her. Dust dealers used pay
phones for the same reasons.

  Just what was the soon-to-be Tooth Fairy into?

  Only one way to find out. Far from germophobic, I thought twice before touching the obviously sticky phone. Pulling on my gloves, I lifted the receiver with a shiver of revulsion. A dial tone greeted me. Apparently, Isabella had found the only working pay phone in the entire city.

  Quite a feat.

  Shoving fifty cents into the slot, I dialed a familiar if not friendly number. “Fairy Atlantic, how can I help you?” a voice answered in a bored tone.

  “Hey, Belle,” I said. “Been a while.”

  “Blue? Is that you, sugar?”

  I grinned, letting her affected southern charm slide over me like expensive whiskey. “How have you been? Still seeing that Harry guy?”

  She laughed, a husky sound that sent shivers of current along my spine. “His name is Dave and you know it. Now, what can I do for the one who got away?”

  It was my turn to laugh. “You know as well as I do that we would’ve never worked. The Blue Belle jokes alone killed any chance of a future together.” Not to mention the third-degree burns I’d left on her thighs after a drunken encounter in an alley outside a nightclub.

  “True,” she said with a giggle. “So what do you need?”

  “Can you trace this number for me?”

  “Of course.” The rattle of fast fingers sliding over a keyboard filled the phone line. “It’s a pay phone on the corner of Fairy and Park.”

  I grinned. “I know. I’m calling from there. What I need to know is what number was called from here two nights ago about eight at night.”

  “Oh.”

  “Can you do that?”

  Her voice slid two octaves lower. “Honey, the things I’m capable of would amaze even someone as jaded as yourself.”

  “I don’t think Dave would approve.”

  “If he knew I was still talking to you, I’m fairly sure his approval wouldn’t be the main issue.” She cleared her throat, all teasing humor gone, replaced with complete professionalism. The main reason we’d broken up. “Okay, two numbers were called from your location during that time frame.” She rattled off the numbers, both New Never City area codes. “The first number is for a business a mile away, it looks like some sort of clothing shop, and the second . . .”